Before The Fall
by Kae Aleah
Summary: The Cromwell family were legends among old Hunters. They were known to be the best at their job, but in the end, they still died while doing it. The line was broken and Alice Cromwell, after the loss of her older brother Aiden, found herself to be the last of this once legendary family. The only thing Alice has going for her now is her deadly skills and a strong sense of survival.
1. Hunted

**HUNTED**

Twilight took shape and that's when the monsters began to roam around the earth. Beasts in mostly human form, ghost in search for revenge, and demons in need for a little fun, but on this particular night, a ghost was put to rest by a pair of two unlikely hunters, sibling...brothers...

The empty space was filled with the sound of clicking heels, slowly walking into the destroyed home of Constance Welch, also formerly known as the ghostly Women in White. The whole front part of the wall was torn down and the inside was riddled with wood from the wall collapsing and old, dried up pieces of furniture. A woman completely dressed in all black leather set her motorcycle helmet down on a fallen over shelf to have a look around. She stepped down but heard glass breaking under her heels. Looking below, she saw an old picture of Constance and her children in the frame. They were the children in which she drowned out of rage and jealousy, caused by her husband's unfaithfulness.

"Guess someone took her down before I could." She mumbled lowly and threw the picture down. The glass frame shattered hard against the floor and the fragments scattered. She walked across the rubble of the ruined house and came upon a puddle of water on the carpet, right next to the stairs. "Hmm..." The woman grabbed a hold of the banister leading up to the second floor and saw that they were wet as well. "It was pretty damn recent I'd say." She mumbled and tried her best to walk out of the house, snatching up her helmet on the way out.

The woman's motorcycle was parked outside the house with the engine still running. She reached out to a heavy and thick bag leaning against the back wheel and pulled out a map and red marker from the inside. She opened the map up that was riddled with red marks all over the map, locations with the label 'Hunt?' on it and some even had 'X' marks on them too.

"So Jericho, California is a bust, huh." She marked the location out with a big X with her marker and began to trace along the road with her finger, coming up to another label that said 'Hunt?' The woman chewed the cap of her marker with her teeth and lifted her eyebrow. "Black Water Ridge, Colorado." She muttered to herself and capped the marker, put the map back in her bag as well. The woman lifted her head up to the sound of hooting owls, her blue eyes giving the moon a piercing gaze.

The woman pulled her helmet back over her face and got up on her bike and took off, the engine roaring into the night, giving the monster looming in the dark a warning that a very particular family was on the move.


	2. Wendigo

**WENDIGO**

It was nothing but a bright red blur on these isolated back roads in Colorado. The engine roared like a monster and echoed through the tall wall of trees lining the roads. This blazing red, Ducati motorcycle cried out as it sped up and down the highway with a rider at the handlebars, dressed head-to-toe in black leather.

The rider glanced down the road and saw an old black Chevy Impala with Kansas plates on the back. Naturally, it wasn't uncommon for people to be out of state, even for the backroads where the rider was now, so the rider wasn't all that surprised either but then, they both turned into the Lost Creek Colorado, National Forest. The rider began to speed up next to the Impala and saw two men in their 20's inside.

* * *

The two brothers drove down the road for the National Forest. The oldest brother, Dean casually glanced out the window to looked in the thick woods of the forest, literally jumped out of fright when he met with a dark tinted visor of the Ducati rider that drove up beside his car.

"Sam." He quickly called out to his brother without taking his eyes off the rider. "Hey!" He called again loudly and actually slapped his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Dude, what the hell are you-" Sam looked away from the map with an annoyed expression but flinched when he saw the rider up close to the window.

The rider quickly looked away and drove down the highway and was out of sight in a blink of an eye.

"What's his problem?" Dean watched at the rider drove till it was nothing but a speck.

* * *

"So blackwater ridge is pretty remote," Sam said, looking over a 3D replica of the ridge while Dean checked out the decorations and pictures hung up in the rangers station. "It's cut off by these canyons here. It has abandoned silver and gold mine all over the place."

Sam's words seemed to go right over Dean's head. "Dude, check out the size of this fricken' bear." He called out, staring at the gigantic bear in a picture in front of him.

"And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area," Sam added, looking over the picture.

Suddenly, a female voice spoke up from behind the boys, low toned and a bit rough sounding. "This place ain't some playground, that's for sure."

The two brothers looked over their shoulder's and saw a woman standing behind them in the doorway of the back room. She was just a few inches shorter then Dean, even with the heels she had on. Shoulder length wavy brown hair with blonde highlights and bright blue eyes that were striking and defined. This attractive woman also wore a form-fitting, two-piece black leather riding outfit with a big duffle bag slung her shoulder and a helmet in her other hand.

She spoke in a low tone as her lips curled up in a smirk. "And I'm sure your boys aren't here for a little walk in the woods." It was almost like she could read their minds and tell what they are actually doing here.

Dean scoffed at this after recognizing the outfit and helmet. She was the rider that about gave him and his brother a heart attack. It was no surprise by her attitude, that she was in the same 'business' as they were. The last thing Dean needed right now was another Hunter getting in the way. No matter how hot she was and how good she looked in that outfit.

A new voice wandered into the room. "You two aren't planning to go out near blackwater ridge by any chance?" A ranger walked into the room with a mug in his hand and gave the boys a suspicious look.

"Oh, no, sir." Sam quickly covered with a lie. "We're just environmental-study majors from the UV boulder. Just working on a paper." He said.

Dean waved his fist. "Recycle, man."

"Bull." The ranger said bluntly and pointed his mug at them. "You're both friends with the Haley girl, right? I will tell exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the 24th. So it's not exactly a missing person, now, is it?" He explained.

"Sure seems that way." The woman muttered under her breath but only the boy could hear. Dean gave her a suspicious glance.

"Tell that girl to quit worrying. I'm sure her brother's just fine." Ranger Wilkinson walked away from his desk and suddenly handed the woman a piece of paper "And, ma'am, you're paperwork is already filled out. You're free to go. Have a safe trip." He said.

The woman smirked and folded up the paper. "Will do." She walked up beside Dean and placed a hand on his shoulder. "See you two later." She said in a low rumbling voice before walked out of the station.

Dean fought the urge to stare at her as she strolled out but he managed to stop himself. "That Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Dean smirked, getting back on topic.

"That's putting it mildly."

"Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know so she could see her brother's return date." Dean suggested.

Wilkinson raised a brow at the two boys. "This is actually the second time someone asked me for one." He suddenly notified them but still looked through his paperwork for one.

Dean cocked a brow. "Really, who was the first one?" He asked.

"The girl who just signed up to stay in the forest for a few days. The one who left just now." Wilkinson then fumbled through the papers on his desk. "She said her name's 'Alice Marie Cromwell'." He shrugged his shoulder. "If you ask me, it's probably a fake last name, never heard of something as strange sounding like that before."

* * *

Dean chuckled to himself as him and Sam walked out of the ranger's station, looking down at the copy permit.

"What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam questioned, noticing the look his brother was getting.

Dean took a glance at his brother. "What do you mean?"

"The coordinates point to blackwater ridge. So, what are we waiting for? Let's go and find dad. I mean, this Alice girl seems to be a Hunter, why not let her handle it? Why even go talk to this girl." Sam complained while walking over to the Impala.

"Maybe we should know what we're walking into," Dean said back. "And apparently there's another Hunter here, by the looks of it, and I don't know... There might actually be something going on around here, and when were you shot first ask questions later anyway?"

"Since now," Sam said, getting into the car.

Dean nodded his head and shrugged. "Alright then."

* * *

A young girl opened the door and saw Sam and Dean standing on the front porch of her house.

"You must be Haley Collins." Dean said. "I'm Dean and this is Sam. We're-"

"Rangers with the park service," Haley answered back immediately, not looking shocked at all that they were here. "I heard from your partner, Alice Cromwell."

There was a long pause to try to process how this Alice woman knew that they were coming, around this time too.

"Did she now." Dean nodded his head, trying to play it off with a smile and short laugh. "Is Alice here now?"

"Yeah, come on in," Hayley said, moving to the side for them to come in.

"Thank you," Sam said and followed his brother in. "So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know somethings wrong?" He asked her.

Haley walked into the kitchen with a bowl in her hand. "He checks in every day by cell. He E-mails photos, stupid little videos, but we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

The brothers walked into the kitchen and saw the woman from before sitting at the table. She was now dressed in dark jeans, black wedges and her black riding jacket now opened up to a gray top.

"The kid has a satellite phone." Alice cut in, already getting down to business. Dean and Sam both noticed that her demeanor seemed to have changed to become more serious, but that's natural for a Hunter. "Couldn't he just forgot to check in, he could just be having fun." She asked Haley with a frown of confusion after trying to wrap her brain around the situation

"He wouldn't do that." Haley's other brother, Ben dropped his spoon when he heard her.

Haley then started to explain their situation "Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me... We all keep pretty close tabs on each other." She said.

"Really..." Alice mumbled, nodding her head slowly.

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam then suddenly cut in.

Haley nodded. "Yeah."

* * *

Haley pulled a video up on her laptop. "That's Tommy." She pointed and clicked on a video.

"Hey, Haley," Tommy said to the camera. "Day six. We're still out near backwater ridge. We're fine, keeping safe. So don't worry, okay?"Talk to you tomorrow." The video stopped.

Alice's narrowed her eyes very slightly at the video and leaned her face closer to the film as it played again.

Dean spoke up. "We'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater ridge first thing." He said to them.

"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley said. "look, I can't sit around here anymore. I hired a guide. I'm heading out in the morning and looking to find Tommy myself."

Dean slightly nodded his head. "I think I know how you feel."

Alice leaned against the wall with her hands upon her chin. "Hey, can you forward these to me?"

"Sure."

* * *

Alice had herself and boys moved to a local restaurant where she sat across from them. "So," She leaned against her chair and stared at the boys across from her. "before we get down to it, let's formerly get to know each other." She held her hand out. "I'm Alice. Alice Marie Cromwell."

Sam shook her hand. "I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother, Dean." He gestured towards the grumpy man next to him.

"Winchester?" Alice lifted her brow at the familiar name. She looked over at Dean and saw he was giving her a look to get on with it. "Don't give me that look." She gave him a warning. "But since you don't know what I'm talking about, I guess you didn't see it in the film."

"See what?" Dean said in a harsh tone. He didn't like that she was acting cocky and especially that another hunter was in the area. Needless to say, this was his hunt and he didn't need someone else coming in and doing things their way.

Alice cocked a brow but didn't say anything. She opened her laptop. "It's not the first time someone went missing. I downloaded Tommy's video...because something caught my eye." She turned the video to them and clicked play.

Dean and Sam watched with careful eyes at what Alice said that she noticed. A chill sprung up their spines though when a black mass, outside the tent Tommy was in, quickly move in the background of the video. Tommy didn't even flinch or make any noticeable changes to his demeanor when the shadowy figure moved outside his tent. He didn't even know it was there.

Dean quickly got closer "Do it again." Once again she played the video but paused it, going by three frames. It was clear now that something wasn't right about that shadowy figure. It didn't look normal enough to be a human and it was far to fast to be anything but supernatural.

"The things fast." Alice's voice was grim. "Fast enough to move in three frames in under a fraction of a second."

Dean smacked Sam in the arm and grinned. "I told you something weird was going on." Dean looked back up to Alice and gave her a generally impressed look. "How in the hell were you able to notice that thing the first time?"

Alice smirked and snickered. "I've been a Hunter for as long as I can remember. It becomes second nature to always look behind oneself." She closed the laptop, her face turning serious once again and her voice dropping to an ominous tone. "One more thing. In 59', one camper survived the supposed 'grizzly' attack. Just a kid, and he barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Sam looked at her. "Do we have a name?"

* * *

An old man, Mr. Shaw, walking away from the brothers and Alice before sitting down on a chair. "I don't know what to tell you, rangers. It was only-"

"Grizzle attack?" Alice doubted him, cutting him off.

Dean has only been working with this woman for a couple of hours and he already noticed that she has two to distinct moods. Yeah, she can joke around no problem and be sarcastic as hell, but when it came hunting, she seemed to grow an almost calm but seriously chilling demeanor.

This was her 'Hunters Mode'.

"I don't know, it's not like you'll believe me." His expression saddened.

Alice kept a cool expression and moved in front of him and kneeled down. "Please, just tell us what you saw. I won't judge someone if they haven't explained themselves yet."

Mr. Shaw suddenly took a deep sigh and felt the woman's eye peer right into his. "I didn't see anything, it moved to fast." He began.

"It got into your tent," Sam added.

A horrid expression appeared on his face as the nightmare like memories resurface that he wished he had buried. "It got into our cabin." He corrected. "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. I woke up to my parents screaming."

Alice tilted her head. "Excuse me." Alice reached her hand out and pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal four large deep claw marks down his shoulder. Her eyes narrowed upon the sight. "I know for a fact...that a grizzle didn't leave you this."

The old man grabbed Alice's hand and held it tightly when he began to recall the memories. "There's an evil in those woods." He said lowly.

Alice's eyes hardened as she saw the fear raise up in his old eyes that has now seen the true face of fear. Yeah, a child would lie about a monster, but after all these years...why would he lie now? "There's evil in every dark corner of the wilderness."

* * *

Dean, Sam, and Alice walked down the corridor of an old apartment after talking to Mr. Shaw and confirming his story. They were sure now if they had any doubts. Something seriously dangerous was going on in those woods. They were old woods, so God knows what lurked inside the darkness with no one there to see it.

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. If they want inside, they just go through the doors." Dean sighed and shook his head.

"So it's probably something else, something corporeal," Sam said but got a look from both Dean and Alice.

Did he actually say that?

"Corporeal?" Dean raised a brow.

"Excuse me, professor." Alice and Dean said at the same time, rolling their eyes. The two then turned to each other and stare, realizing that they said it at the exact same time.

"Shut up." Sam rolled his eyes at the two. "So what do you two think?"

"The claws, the speed that it moves..." Alice counted on his figures. "Not enough fingers to count. Its identity is still up in the air."

"Could be a skinwalker or a black dog." Dead suggested. "Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it." They were sure of that.

* * *

Dean opened the truck to his Impala and opened the secret floor to his weapons box that most hunters have. He propped it opened with a shotgun and began to load guns into a duffle bag. Alice walked over to her motorcycle and grabbed her bag that was hooked to the back. She pulled out a pair of hiking boots and pulled her heels off to replace them with. Her eyes glanced over at Sam who was giving his brother a look.

"We can't let that Haley girl go out there," Sam said to Dean.

"Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?" Dean replied sarcastically.

"Yeah," Sam answered, making Alice lift her head.

"Her brothers missing." Alice cut in, walking back over to them with her bag slung around her shoulder. "She not going to just sit this one out, and it not like she will believe us if we do tell her, it will only make the situation worse. She'll just think we're crazy."

"Alice's right, Sam," Dean spoke up. "Now we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend." He picked up the duffle.

"Finding Dad's not enough?" Sam argued, and once again getting Alice's attention. He slammed the weapons arsenal shut and then the trunk. "Now we gotta babysit too?" Sam looked over at Alice and saw her giving him a look. "What?"

Alice walked over to Dean and grabbed the duffle out of his hands and shoved the heavy thing over to Sam harshly. "There is a job that needs doing. I don't know what is going on with your father, but right now...focus on the mission at hand. Let's go." She said coldly and opened the back door of the Impala to get in.

Dean slowly moved over to the driver's side of the Impala and mouthed the word 'wow' at Alice's harshness, finding it damn hot at the same time. Okay, he will admit it, Alice was really growing on him.

* * *

Dean glanced at Alice through the mirror and saw her adjusting the scope of her rifle, and loading shotgun shells, and putting bullets into the magazine of her pistol. Dean's been a Hunter long enough to tell that she's been in this line if business longer then he probably has. She was calm and worked fast. In some hunter cases, they would be anxious about doing what she does. Dean felt kinda bad now that he was a bit harsh with her, but he can tell now that she can get serious when she know that someones in danger. He can see the hardness in her eyes when working a case because she's almost completely different from when they first met her.

His eyes began to wander up to her calm face. He had to admit that she was attractive, and she had a dangerous edge to her that practically screamed 'Don't piss off'.

"You look like you have something you want to say to me," Alice asked, lifting her blue eyes up to stare at him through the mirror. "Dean." She snapped the magazine into her pistol.

Even the way she says his name sounded dangerous. Tough girl, really...

"It's nothing, just...you looked comfortable." He pointed out.

"The guns you mean?" She waved her black pistol. "Well, I learned how to hold a gun before I learned how to talk, so...you can say it comes naturally." A small smile made it to her face. "You can't be all jittery when trying to load your gun. You'd probably end up shooting yourself before a monster does you in." She said dryly.

Sam looked over his shoulder at Alice and met her gaze. "You don't seem that old. How old were you when you started. Where is your family now?" He asked.

A chuckle escaped from Alice's lip's "Are you questioning me, Sammy?" She earned a laugh from Dean, but Sam looked displeased. "Don't worry about it. I have no problem talking about my family. I was introduced to the supernatural at a young age, about when I was... 6?" She mumbled, trying to remember. "I was a sheltered child, doing nothing but Hunting and learning, I rarely went to a normal school, mostly homeschooled." She slowly began to get quite. "When I was 10...my father passed. And when I was 15 my mother died of cancer, and after that, it was just me and my older brother Aiden."

Dean blinked, he stared at her through the mirror. "You have a brother?"

"Yeah." Alice leaned back in her seat. "Aiden was all I had left, he was practically my life and everything I learned was from him. He was the biggest dork and never took anything seriously, even when Hunting. He was everything to me, he was my family and I loved him, but two years ago...Aiden was killed on a hunt." Alice bit down on her lips and rubbed her eyes like she was trying to cover her face from the boys.

"Hey, you alright?" Dean softened. "I understand where you're coming from."

"I'm fine." Alice took a breath. "I made peace with myself long ago." She grinned, cocking the last gun in her hands. "Look alive boys, we're coming up."

Dean drove up to the search party the had Haley, Ben, and their guide, Roy. Dean drove the car to a slow stop and the three Hunters stepped out.

"You guys got room for three more?" Dean closed the car door. They walked up to them with Alice slap in the middle of the brothers.

"Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley questioned them.

"Who are these guy?" Roy asked.

"Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for a search and rescue," Haley said with a roll of her eyes. Disappointed with only those three.

Roy eyed Alice's clothes. She wore thick leather that was obvious her black riding jacket. To his eyes, she looked like a biker punk. "You look more like a Harley rider." He questioned her. "You're a ranger?"

Alice smiled. "Yes, sir. We are." She answered back, but the polite words didn't match her cocky tone.

Haley started at them with a raised eyebrow. "And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?"

Dean looked down at himself. "Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts." he walked passed her with a smirk.

"What," Roy spoke up almost angrily. "You think this is funny. It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt." He looked down on Alice.

Alice once cheerful and cocky expression flatlined and her voice became hard sounding. She looked back to Dean and Sam before turning back to Roy. "Believe me when I say this, I wouldn't have come all the way out here if I didn't know that. I know how to do my job, and I'm not going to tell you how to do your job." She purposely bumped into Roy as she walked passed him.

Dean stifled a laughed and leaned in close to his brother to whispered. "I like her." He said while acting giddy, pointing to Alice.

Sam slowly nodded in agreement. "Yeah, she's starting to grow on me too. Definitely the 'Don't piss off' type." He said quietly.

* * *

The group hiked through the dense woods of the forest, Roy in the lead with Alice, Dean, Haley, Ben, and Sam bringing up the rear.

"Roy," Dean walked up to him. "You said you did a little hunting."

"Yeah, more than a little," Roy answered back.

"Uh-huh." Dean nodded. "What kind of furry critters do you hunt?"

"Mostly buck sometimes bears."

Dean passed Roy. "Tell me, uh, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" Suddenly Roy grabbed ahold of Dean's jacket. "Whatcha doing, Roy?" He said lowly.

Roy grabbed a stick from off the ground and poked a placed bear trap that Dean was about to step on if Roy didn't stop him. "You should watch where you're stepping. Ranger." Roy mocked, grabbed his stick and retaking the lead.

Dean looked back to Alice who was giving him a look. "It's a bear trap."

"Yeah..." She slowly nodded her head. "I noticed." Alice sighed and walked up beside Dean. "It's not a good way to go, you know. Stepping on a bear trap," she said with a smirk.

Dean snickered as she walked ahead of him, but he couldn't help to have his eyes wander up and down her. He continued to walk with the group but was suddenly stopped by Haley.

"You didn't pack any provisions and you guys are carrying a duffle bag." She began digging into him in a low tone that only Dean and Alice could hear. "You're not rangers." She claimed. Alice stopped and looked back to them along with Sam. Haley grabbed Dean's arm. "So who the hell are you?" She demanded.

Dean gave Sam and Alice a look that told them to keep walking, that he'll handle it. Sam nodded and continued on followed by Ben, but Alice took a few looks before shaking her head and continued on down the path.

Dean watched them for a second before beginning. "Sam and I are brothers, and we're looking for our father. He might be here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me, we're on the same boat."

"Why didn't you just tell me from the start?" Haley asked.

"I'm telling you now. 'sides, it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman...ever. So we okay?"

Alice was still close enough to hear that last comment. She scoffed and shook her head.

Haley paused. "Yeah, okay."

"And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" Dean pulled out a big bag of peanut M&Ms and stuck a hand in the bag as he hiked on. Haley waited for a moment before following.

* * *

Alice sighed as Roy finally stopped in a part of the forest that was noticeably thicker as well as deadly silent. It's been a couple of hours now since they began their search and daylight was burning away with every second. It won't be long till they had to stop and camp out for the night. They're hoping to reach Tommy's camp before sundown.

Roy looked back at the group. "This is it. Black Water Ridge." He said.

Sam walked passed him and looked around the thick woods. "What coordinates are we at." He asked.

Roy pulled out a GPS. "Thirty-five and minus one-eleven."

Dean walked over Sam and scanned the area in front of them with a suspicious look on his face. "You hear that?"

Sam nodded his head. "Yeah. Not even crickets."

"I'm gonna go take a look around. " Roy called out.

"You shouldn't go off on your own," Sam warned Roy.

"That's sweet." Roy mocked him. "Don't worry about me." He pushed passed him.

Dean looked back to everyone else. "All right, everybody stays together. Let's go." As everyone moved passed him he noticed Alice kneeling on the ground with her head down. "Alice? Hey."

Alice lifted her head and snapped a thick, deep purple book in her hands shut. "What? Oh, sorry." She got to her feet. "I'm still trying to figure out what the hell's out there." She waved the book around.

Dean raised a brow and eyed the rough leather of the book. "A hunters journal?" You pointed. "You got one too?"

"Hmm?" Alice looked down at the book on her hands and handed it over to Dean to look at. He flipped through the pages covered in all kinds of lore and even monster that he hasn't heard of before. He never saw something this advance before. Not to mention old too. The pages were beginning to tear.

"Holy..." He breathed in shock as he looked at the pages filled with all kinds of knowledge. "For some reason...I didn't think you would have one." He mumbled, handing the journal back to Alice.

Alice kneeled down, unzipped her bag and stuffed it back in. "Doesn't every hunter have one? I don't care how good you are, you can't remember all the freaky shit that's out there."

Dean laughed "Ain't that for sure." He took out his hand for Alice to take.

Alice smiled and took it and was pulled up. "You got one too?"

"Yeah, our fathers. Tell me," Dean and Alice begun to walked to catch up with the group. "did you put that together yourself?"

Alice smiled warmly before shaking her head. "Nah, this journal was put together by years of Cromwell Hunters. This things older than I am."

Dean lifted a brow and noticed something that she said. "Your whole family were Hunters?"

Alice clicked her tongue. "Every generation up to me." She cut off her conversation and ran to retake her position as second in the lineup.

* * *

"Haley! Over here!" Roy called out. Haley ran ahead to where Roy was calling from and stood on the ground of Tommy's campsite, but was only greeted with disappointment and a torn up camp, claw marks in tents, and splattered blood.

"Oh my god!" Haley's gasped in horror.

"Look's like a grizzly," Roy said.

"Tommy?" Haley walked around, dropping her bag. "Tommy! Tommy!"

Sam ran over to her. "Shh! Shh-hh-hh!" He quickly stopped her from making any further noise.

"Why," Haley questioned him.

"Because..." Alice walked up to the front of the group and at the edge of the campsite. "It still might be out there." She warned them with a chilling low voice.

"Sam. Alice," Dean called to the hunters from the other side of the camp edge. They walked over to him and crouched next to him to see what he was looking at. Tracks, dragging marks in fact, in the dirt leading out of the campsite. "The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here, the tracks just vanished." he mumbled so only his brother and Alice could hear. "That's weird." They stood up. "I'll tell you what, that's no skinwalker or black dog."

Dean, Sam, and Alice walked back to the campsite and saw Haley kneel down and pick up Tommy's cellphone, broken and covered in blood.

Haley felt Alice's hand on her shoulder. "People bleed every day and live through it. He could still be alive." She reassured her worries with gentle words.

"Help!" An unknown voice called from the far distance that caused everyone to jump on guard. "Help!"

Roy took off in the direction of the voice with everyone behind him but leaving all their stuff behind, but the things in their hands.

"Help! Somebody!

Everyone came to a halt and looked around at the area where they heard the voice, but there was not even a soul in sight or sign that anyone was actually here. They could not even hear the voice anyone, and all was quiet.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it!" Haley asked frantically.

Alice lowered the rifle in her hands, her eyes widen in horror and realization. "The problem was...it was." It then suddenly clicked in her brain and her skin turned pale. "Everyone back to the camp, now!" She practically screamed.

* * *

Alice came to sliding halt when she stopped in the middle of the campsite, and not even one of their packs were in sight, everything was just gone.

Haley gasped. "Our packs! What the hell is going on?"

Alice breathed out and ran her fingers through her hair. "The damn thing's smart. It wants to cut us off, stop us from calling for help." She explained, her voice shaking a bit, catching the Winchester boys attention.

"You mean someone, some nutjob out there just stole all our gear." Roy corrected.

Alice marched over to Dean and Sam, her expression full of panic and worry, clearly alarming the boys. "I need to speak to the two of you. In private." she says. The three of them moved away from the group.

Dean quickly stopped Alice in her tracks and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Alice. What's wrong? You know what it is?"

Alice quickly nodded her head. "It took my pack that had my journal in it. Can I have your Hunters journal for a second?" She asked with a frantic voice. Dean nodded and handed his father's journal over to her. Once it was in hands, Alice quickly opened it up and flipped through pages. She stopped and pointed to the one she wanted. "Right here." Alice breathed.

Dean stared down at the page, the Wendigo page and looked back up at Alice. "Oh come on, Alice." He eyed her. "I know you supposed to be an expert on this kind of things, but...Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or, northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west." he shook his head in disbelief.

Alice stared at him with wild eyes and snapped the book shut. "That's the same mistake I made when I went hunting for one, and that mistake cost me my brother's life." She hissed in a sharp whisper, grinned her teeth. "I don't give a damn if they're out in the middle of the ocean." Dean only stared out her in shock and said nothing. "I know those bastards like the back of my hand. I'm not gonna make another mistake like that again and get someone killed because of my dumbass!" She snapped out her last words, breathing heavily with a flushed face.

Dean reached his hand out and held her shoulder and patted her back in an attempt to calm her down. He could feel her shaking under his touch. Dean stared down at her eyes then sighed in frustration. "Great." he waved his gun around. "Well, then this is useless, right?"

Alice took a deep breath and crossed her arms. "You would have better luck just throwing it at him. Shooting at it will only piss it off."

Dean patted her shoulder. He was now feeling an extreme amount of guilt just by seeing her lose her cool like this. "Sorry, Alice. About your brother, I know what it mean's to lose a someone too." His voice softened and he slowly saw the hardness in Alice's eyes fade.

"It's fine." She patted him on the back, hard (It actually kind of hurt a little.), and started to walk back to camp. "Guys, we have to get these people out of here." She says in a wary voice. Alice and the boys walked back to the campsite. "Alright." She clapped her hands, getting everyone's attention. "Things have changed and gotten...complicated and dangerous. We need to leave."

Roy eyed her. "Kid, don't worry. Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it."

"That's not what I mean." Alice shook her head and turned to face Roy finally. "If you shoot that thing then you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave and I mean now."

Roy glared. "One, you're talking nonsense. Two, you're in no position to give anybody orders!" He shouted at her.

"And you think you are? You think too highly of yourself." Alice shot him down immediately.

"Relax," Dean called out to them when she saw things were about to get heated. He trusted Alice to kick Roy's ass but that's the last thing they need right now.

Alice ran a hand through her hair in frustration and breathed out. "It was a bad idea from the start. Never should of let you come out here from the start. I'm trying to protect you."

Roy stepped into Alice's space and started down at her, but only for Alice to glare right back not backing or looking away. "You protect me? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you good night. Do you even know how to use that gun?"

Dean suddenly saw Alice's shoulders relax, but the tension around them was still enough to choke someone.

"You think you rule the forest all because you have a gun in your hands. You said you hunt things? Those are not the only things that roam the forest." Her voice dropped and the air around her seemed to be getting colder and colder. It was enough for Sam and Dean to notice. "That thing is a perfect hunter. It's smarter than me, you, and everyone in this camp combined. If you keep going on like you are now, then you are just gonna get yourself killed, and I have no time for you and your dumbass way of thinking."

Roy didn't take her seriously and only laughed at her. "You know you're crazy, right?"

Dean moved to grab Alice by the shoulder. She was tense as he gently pulled her back before she could literally drop this guy's ass all the way to hell and back. "Alright, Alice. you made your point." He slowly felt her relax.

Haley moved between Roy and Alice, putting her hands up, hoping to stop any fight that might happen. "Stop. Stop it. Everybody just stop. Look. Tommy might still be alive. An I'm not leaving here without him."

There was a long pause before Dean spoke up. "It's getting late, This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves." He ordered.

* * *

_"No...no!" Alice cried, her face stained with blood and married with a fresh cut to her cheek. She cradled her heavily wounded brother in her arms, his stomach ripped apart and covered over with blood and the reminds of his shirt. "Aiden! Please... please don't leave!" She cried out, screaming. "Please don't...leave me..."_

_Aiden's lips trembled as blood flooded his lungs. This is the first time he saw Alice act so broken and helpless and it pained him that he couldn't do anything. He already became numb to the unbearable pain he was feeling just a short while ago. His time was limited now and he would feel it slipping away fast. He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay so badly for his sister, he didn't want to leave her like this...so scared and alone. He didn't know what will become of her after his departure, but even if he doesn't believe in god, he will be praying for her._

_"Alice...Al..." He began to speak but only coughed up the blood in his lungs that were stopping him from doing anything. "Ally...you gotta...you gotta get out...of t-t-these damn wo..ods...!"_

_Alice shook, her breathing heavy and ragged. "Aiden...I don't..I..I...what am I suppose..."_

_"I...love you, Alice...my baby sist..." His words didn't finish, and to Alice's absolute horror, she felt his body slump in her arms and his chest...no longer moving._

_"Ah..." In almost an instant...her tears stopped and were replaced with a hard glare. She started off into the forest of the night, fully expecting the monster to come out and attack once more._

* * *

Night finally fell but their worries only intensified but the campers had no choice but to set up and hold on till daybreak. Alice sat down on a log on the outside of the camp and stared into the darkness of the forest. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She sighed and shook the unpleasant memories out of her head.

Dean walked over to Alice and left Sam with Ben and Haley. He moved right in her line of sight and crouched down. "You wanna telling me what's going on in your head right now?"

Alice rubbed her face with her hands and peeked at Dean through her fingers. "The last time I hunted one of these things were 2 years ago, the same day that Aiden died. I'm all jittery...maybe because of trauma, I don't know." She sighed and admitted. "Aiden, that stupid son of a bitch pushed me aside and ended up getting killed. I remember...that bastard tearing his stomach out before it fled into the wood. Son of a bitch...that mountain was infested with so many..." She dropped her head as she spoke through her teeth.

Dean was now beginning to understand what was making Alice all worried. This was a personal matter. "Alice. Hey." he placed his hand on both sides of her face to force her to look at him. "You're not in this alone, me and Sammy are here to take that thing down...so don't go thinking you have to do this all on your own." He said to assure her, and he could see that it was working. "You might find it hard to trust us since you always worked with your brother, but I'm a brother myself...so I know what you're going through." He said.

Her expression fell but her heart sped up. "I don't really have a chose in the matter to trust other hunters. After all...they are all dead. I'm the last one left. My whole family is gone. " She pulled Dean's hand away from her face but held on to them for a feeling of warmth against her cold hands. Dean froze as if time stopped entirely as Alice continued to speak. "I don't think you know this but...The Cromwell family have been known to be the best hunters around. Sometimes being blown out of proportions to be the best in the world even. Smart, strong, and dangerous. What a load of crap since they all ended up drying anyway." She sounded like she was disgusted with those rumors.

Dean didn't know what to say about this. He was left wordless and with a blank mind. All he could feel now were her cold and rough hands rubbing against his.

"Help me! Somebody help me!" The voice from earlier called out from the deep and dark woods, knocking Dean and Alice out of their conversation.

Alice shinned her flashlight into the woods but even with the light, she still couldn't see anything and because the creature was moving too fast.

"He's trying to draw us out. Just stay put." Dean gave everyone a warning and stayed close to the group.

"Inside the magic circle?" Roy gave a mocking tone, but high on guard.

"Help! Help me!" The voice was cut off by a growling sound.

"Okay, that's no grizzly." Roy convinced in an instant, pointing his gun.

Haley and Ben stayed close to Alice. The hunter flinched and jumped back with them when she heard something rush through the bushes behind them. Alice put her hand up around Haley and Ben, keeping them close. "It's circling us," Alice called out to Sam and Dean.

Roy shoots at the rustling then again into the bushes. "I hit it!" He cried out and ran into the forest to see where he hit.

"Roy, no!" Dean shouted, but Roy was already gone. "Roy!"

"Dean!" Dean turned to face Alice. "I got these this! You and Sam go after him!" She ordered.

Dean gave a nod. "Alright, stay here!" He called back to her before him and Sam disappeared into the forest after Roy.

Alice could still hear the sound of Roy's voice but it was cut off and nothing but silence followed. Sam and Dean came back, but Roy didn't return.

* * *

The long night might have been over, but they were far from safe. Sam was sitting off to the side, leaning against an old rotten tree stump. His thoughts drifted as he playing with the lanyard attached to the binding of their dad's hunting journal, while Alice and Dean stood among Haley and Ben at the torn up tents.

"I don't..." Haley began but the words didn't make it out of her mouth correctly. "I mean, these types of things, they aren't supposed to be real."

"I wish I would tell you differently," Dean said grimly

"How do we know it's not out there watching us." Haley glanced around the woods but of course, saw nothing.

"We don't," Alice said rather bluntly. "But we're better now then we were last night. At least now we can see." She tried to assure them but can't even assure herself.

"How do you know about this stuff" Confused, Haley looked at Alice.

"Well... " She lifted her arms and shrugged her shoulders. "It runs in my family and their's." She gestured to Sam and Dean.

Sam came walking up to the group. "Hey. So we've got a better chance in the daylight, and I for one, want to kill this evil son of a bitch."

Well, hell, you know I'm in." Dean agreed immediately. He looked at Alice. "What about you?"

Alice gave him a look of pure confusion. "You really think I'm in the mood to let that bastard keep breathing?" The cruelness of her words leaked from her mouth, but Dean was only able to smirk at her honesty.

* * *

Sam opened of their dad's journal to the page Alice showed them before. He pointed to the cave-like drawing on the page of the monster. "'Wendingo' is a Cree Indian word. It means 'Evil that devours'." Sam explained from the book

Dean walked by the group. "They're hundreds of years old. Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter."

"How's a man turning into one of those things?" Haley said turning to the boys.

"It's the same old story. During some harsh winter, a man finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. Becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of their tribe or camp."

"Like the Donner party," Ben commented.

"Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality." Said Sam.

"If you eat enough of it, over the years, you become this less then human thing. You're always hungry." Dean said grimly.

"So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Haley said, beginning to fear for her brothers safely.

Dean then turned to Alice who stood to the side of the group her back against a tree and arms crossed. He gesturing for her to finish.

"Letting me give them the bad news, huh?" Her lips went flat. She gave a big sigh and pushed off the tree. "You're not gonna like this, but...more then anything, a wendigo know how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years, but when it's awake, it keeps its victims alive. It..." She stopped for a second. "It stores them so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive then it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden and safe. We gotta track it back there."

"And then how do we do that?"

"Guns are useless, so are knives." Alice counted on her fingers. "There wasn't much options to begin with, but...at a last resort..." She looked at Dean.

Dean held up lighter fluid, a beer bottle and a while cloth he picked up. "We gotta torch the sucker."

* * *

Alice placed her hand on a tree and used it to push herself off the ground and proceeded on the path. She led the small group through the forest and scanned everything and every tree, but she hoped she wouldn't see anything for a while. Alice stopped and looked at a tree that she passed and saw something quite ominous, bloody claw marks. After noticing this, she looked ahead and saw more clam marks on about every tree in front of them. Some were at eye level and others were high in the trees.

Alice held her hand up to stop the group. "Sam. Dean." She called to the boys, but not taking her eyes off the trees.

"What is it?" Dean asked but the only answer he got was her pointing to the claw marks on the first tree she saw them on.

"Alice," Sam called to the girl, yet she was unmoved from her spot. "You know, I was thinking, these claw marks, so clear and distinct." He noticed Alice's look became riddled with caution. "They were almost to easy to follow."

They jumped slightly at the sound of a low growl once again. It really was playing with them. Sam, Dean, and Alice whipped around at the creaking branches. Haley stood by a tree but looked up when she blood dripped on her shirt. She quickly leaped away from the falling corpse of Roy's body came out of the tree.

Dean felt around Roy's neck. "His neck's broke."

Alice quickly turned around where she believed she heard the sound of growling. "We got to get out of here! Get out! Go!" She shouted and everyone took off.

Ben fell and tripped over the roots of the tree's, but while Sam helped him up. Him, Sam and Alice got separated from Dean and Haley. Alice quickly lifted her head at the sound of Haley's terrified scream. The three of them ran through the forest to where the sound of her screams came from but found no one in sight or miles. Dean and Haley were just gone. Vanished.

"Haley!" Ben called for his sister, but no answer.

"Haley!" Alice called out. Not even seeing a moving leave in the distance, it was like they were swept up and vanished without a trace like they weren't even their. Alice's chest felt tight and her hands begun to shake. She breathed in and screamed even louder. "Dean!" Alice was met with the uncalled for silence that filled the woods.

* * *

"If it keeps its victims alive," Ben stood behind Alice, who was still scanning the wood for any kind of activity. "Then why did it kill Roy?" He asked the hunter.

"Honestly." Alice crossed her arms and leaned her back to a tree. "It was probably because he shot at it and pissed it off."

Ben nodded his head. Actually agreeing with her answer, but while looking around, Ben's eyes caught something colorful coming from the ground, when he looked down at it, he realized that was in fact, M&Ms. He picked it up off the floor and looked to Sam and Alice. "They went this way." He called out.

Sam caught up to him with Alice behind him. "It's better than breadcrumbs." Sam laughed and tossed it to Alice.

A smirk crept up to Alice's lips. "Not bad." She tossed it away and the three of them moved on the trail of colorful M&Ms.

They crept through the dense brush and small hills with Sam in front, Ben in the middle and Alice keeping the back, constantly looking over her shoulders every time she heard the leaves shake. Sam turned his head, seeing an entrance to a mine. It was old by the looks of it. There was a small doorway with rotten wood covering the left side of the entrance with moss overgrowing around it. It had a red sign attached to the wood, reading 'WARNING! DANGER! DO NOT ENTER EXTREMELY TOXIC MATERIAL.'

Sam looked back at Alice, and she shrugged. "When the hell did that ever stop us?" She commented boldly and matched right through the small opening without batting an eyelash.

Sam turned to Ben, shrugging and following in right after Alice.

The inside of the mine was dark, cold and it had the strong smell of musk and dirt. The three of them kept to the track, almost covered over by dirt. Sam and Alice shined their torched down the long dark hall but saw nothing hidden in the darkness, but a single light at the far end of the tunnel.

A low growling sound caused them to jump and stumble a bit. Sam and Alice cut off their lights. Alice quickly grabbed the back of their shirts and signaled them to follow her up against a wet wall that they practically glued themselves too. There were heavy footsteps and loud breathing coming from another part of the tunnel. The creature cut the corner and they immediately hit their head against the wall to hide as much as possible. Ben gasped and whimpered when he saw it. Sam quickly covered Ben's mouth and prevented him from uttering a single sound while Alice held her arm out to make sure the boys stand in place. She watched the Wendigo with stony eyes as it walked away from them, taking another part of the tunnel. Alice let out a sigh of relief when it was out of sight.

The three of them carried on through the dark and shined their lights down the hall. The floorboards creaked below them and the wood broke under their weight. Alice let out a shriek as they fell through the floor, hit the ground hard with a loud thump. That was a wake-up call.

Ben lifted his head up and met with a human skull right in front of him. He leaped backward, but Sam caught him.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay, it okay." He reassured him. He looked around and saw Alice beside him groaning and rolling on her back. "Alice, you alright?" He asked.

Alice bit her lips and nodded. "Yep, yep...just fine..." She quickly answered and sat up. She turned her head to the right and spotted Dean and Haley dangling from the ceiling. "Oh my God."

Sam sprung from his spot and hurried over to his brother. He grabbed him by the front of his jacket and shook him. "Dean!"

Ben ran to his sister's side. "Haley, wake up."

Sam shook Dean once again and he finally opened his eyes, gasping and groaning.

"Dean! Hey, you okay?" Sam asked him.

Dean closed his eyes tightly and breathed deeply. "Yeah." He winced.

Alice sighed and stumbled to her feet. She winced when she felt a sharp pain in her right leg. "At least no ones dead." She breathed in deeply and limped over to them.

"Good to see you too, sweetheart." Dean joked.

Alice pulled out a knife from her back pocket. "Yeah, same here." She smiled slightly.

She reached up and cut the rope holding him to the ceiling. Both Sam and Alice eased him down to the ground. Dean tightened his jaw and groaned in pain. Alice handed Sam her knife for him to cut Haley down.

Alice placed her hands on the sides of Dean's face to get a better look at him. "Are you sure you're all right?" She asked.

Dean grimaced and hunched forward in pain. "Yeah. Yep. Where is he?"

"We saw him leave. So he's gone for now." Alice said.

Haley rubbed her wrists from the rawness that the ropes caused. She looked up and spotted something to her horror. It was her brother Tommy. Hanging from the ceiling by his hands, motionless.

"Tommy..." She choked out. Ben brought her to her feet and they limped over to their brother as she began to cry. "Tommy..." She voice cracked as she reached her hand out and touched his cheek. His head jerked up and Haley shrieked and jumped back. She grabbed her brother to steady him and looked at Sam. "Cut him down!"

Sam used Alice's knife and freed him from the rope. Tommy almost fell to the ground but was caught before he could.

Dean looked to the stolen supplies that were right next to him and spotted Alice's pack. He opened it up and saw her family Hunters journal and many other weapons. Half impressed and shocked about how many she has, he spotted something red pushed up against the side. "Alice," he called to her. Alice turned her head saw Dean getting up, grinning while holding up two flare guns. "You're awesome."

Sam looked to Alice then back to the flare guns. "Flare guns." he shrugged and grinned. "Those'll work."

Dean laughed and twirled the guns.

* * *

They headed down the tunnel once again in a desperate attempt to escape with Sam and Dean taking the lead, Alice took the middle and Ben and Haley supported Tommy while holding his arms around their shoulders. They heard that distinct deep and ominous growl like before echo through the dark tunnels.

"Looks like someone's home for supper." Dean's eyes trailed the darkness.

"You guys will never outrun it." Alice brought up, groaning in pain with her throbbing leg that she landed on wrong. "But it can be distracted."

Dean raised a brow and turned around to face her, but noticed something in her hand. An air horn "Where the hell did you get that?" He pointed.

Alice grinned and held up the air horn. "My bag, of course." She held out her hand. "Give me your gun. I'll draw it's attention while you guys get out."

Dean didn't like this one bit. Alice looked like hell right now and was more injured them him because of that little tumble she had. He shook his head. "Alice..."

Alice suddenly reached out and grabbed his hand clenching the gun. "Just do it." She said in a firm voice that was unshaken and unfazed by any kind of fear.

Dean sighed in defeat. He felt like he would not win against her if she was this serious. She was as stubborn as a rock. Dean grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly, looking her dead in the eye when he spoke. "Don't get yourself killed." He opened her hand up and placed the flare gun in it. Dean held her gaze for a moment before Alice stepped back.

"Get out! Run!" She pointed down the tunnel.

Dean gave Alice a wink before looking to Haley and them. "All right. Listen to me. Sam and I are going to get you out of here. Let's go!" He gave one final glance to Alice before she disappeared down the dark tunnels. he felt his heart sink into the ground when the air horn blasted through the tunnels.

Sam walked around the edge of the tunnel, flare gun up and ready. After he saw it was clear, he looked back to them. "All right come on! Hurry!"

* * *

They hurried down the dark and musty tunnels with Sam and Dean leading the way. Their heart sank to the very pits of hell though when the Wendigo's low growl was heard and Sam immediately raised his gun in the direction of the sound.

"Sam," Dean called out, limping behind him. "You're not gonna pull an Alice are you?" he gave him a wary tone.

Sam turned around. "Get them out of here." He told them exactly what Dean did not want to here.

Dean rolled his eyes but sucked it up. "Fine." He turned to the family of injured three. "Let's go." He ordered them.

"What about Sam?" Haley asked.

"He can handle it." Dean gave them a push to keep going. He looked back to his brother one last time. "Come on!" He took the three down the tunnel, leaving his brother in the dark and cold cave, alone with the man-eater.

Sam darted to the wall and waited in the silence where nothing was heard except his breathing and his heart pounding in his chest.

"Come on." He whispered. "Come on." He waited in anticipation.

Sam looked around the corner and the Wendigo shrieking right in his face. Bearing it's sharp teeth at him and showing it brown wrinkly skin. Sam ducked down and quickly shot at the monster, but it was too quick and he missed his only shot. Sam got to his feet and ran down the tunnel as fast as he could.

Dean froze and turned around after hearing Sam fire his only round. "Sam!?"

Sam darting down the long hall and right into them. "Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry."

They were running down the tunnel at this point with the Wendigo's loud footsteps slamming against the ground right behind them. They ran around the corner but came to a dead end. Sam and Dean felt their heart burning with pain and pumping with adrenaline as the Wendigo's dark figure turned the corner. The boys quickly got in front of them and held their arms out to protect them.

"Get behind us!" Dean and Sam stood before the killer in their last stand.

They could see it coming closer and closer. It was tall, but nothing more than skin and bones. Its arms were freakishly long with claws that scraped across the ground as it walked. The more it approached the fewer ideas they had in their heads to get out of the mess, but it was too late for it was to close at this point. They were in no shape to fight, with a dead end and no weapons.

The Wendigo shrieked out this inhuman like roar that made their hearts stop, but at the moment his roar was overshadowed with an even loader air horn sound from directly behind it. The Wendigo turned around as Alice stood behind it with an unrelenting look on her face.

"Hey," she said in a causal and tired voice before pulling the trigger.

The flare shot right into the stomach of the monster as it irrupted in flames. It screamed out as its skin burned away like paper drowned in gasoline. It continued to scream in like an animal being murdered as its face burned away and its shouts of pain faded along with its body. It gave out one last roar that sound like a cougar as its body fell to the floor, still aflame.

Alice let out a sigh of ease and made sure to burn that sign in her eyes. She through the gun away. "So I guess that's that." She gave a lazy smile.

Dean grinned. "Not bad, sweetheart."

Alice smirked and winked at him. Dean will admit this, she really saves their asses because they really were slap-out-of-luck, and just damn...Dean stopped carrying about staring for too long and burned Alice's face into his memory, just enjoying the view.

* * *

So the night went on as the ambulance arrived along with the local police right outside of the ranger station. Ben and Sam gave a summary to the police about what not happened. Ben only described the monster as a bear, while Haley and Dean were already patched up.

"So I don't know how to thank you," Haley said. Dean though gave a lascivious smirk and she cracked a smiled despite herself. "Must you cheapen the moment?"

"Yeah." Dean laughed.

A paramedic came up to Haley. "You riding with your brother?" She asked

Haley nodded. "Yeah." She turned to Ben. "Let's go."

Ben gave a small nod and turned to Sam. Sam smiled and gave him a pat on the back.

Haley stared at Dean and leaned in, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I hope you find your father." She parted alongside with her brother. "Thanks, Sam." Haley began to walk off with Ben.

Alice paid no mind to them and was already getting prepared to leave. She was dressed back in her black leather riding outfit and was about finished loading her stuff in her bag. She always did this and doesn't care for 'thanks'. She doesn't do this job to be praised. She does her job and gets out before people start asking the right questions. She does this job because she has too. Because there's not enough people out there to stop these things from happening.

"Alice!" Haley's voice caught her ears. She turned her head in her direction and saw her and Ben smiling and waving at her. "Thank you!"

She doesn't do this job to be praised, but it doesn't stop people from thanking her for saving their lives, and honestly, it felt rewarding when it did happen.

Alice gave a wary smiled and single wave. "Take care of each other!"

Haley nodded. She turned around as her lip started to quiver. 'Thank you', could not even compare to what she really wanted to say. No world could compare to the thanks she was feeling, for Alice saving the lives of her and her brothers. It was enough though, and Haley let it at that. She jumped in the ambulance with Ben and sat beside Tommy.

Sam and Dean sat on the hood of the Impala and stared at the ambulance as it drove off with Haley still looking out the window at them.

"Man, I hate camping," Dean said and Sam only agreed.

"Me too."

"Sam, you know we're going got fine Dad, right?" Dean turned to him.

Sam only nodded. "Yeah, I know. But in the meantime?" Sam then started to grin. "I'm driving.

Dean stood still for a moment but gave in. He tossed his brother the keys. "But we're not going alone." Dean glanced behind him as a motorcycle started up.

Sam turned around to see what his brother was staring at. "Yeah...we're not going alone." he agreed with a laugh.

Dean got up from the hoot and walked over to Alice reeving up her motorcycle to leave. Dean placed himself between the exit and her bike, putting his hands on the handles and stared at her. "You really don't like sticking around, don't you." He gave her a charming grin.

Alice sighed and shut off her bike to listen. "What do you want, Dean?" She cut right to it.

Dean stared at her, his playful expression was dropped and was set to a serious one. "Look...me and Sam agreed, but you don't have to if you want. We were wondering if you would like to help us find our dad."

Alice was shocked, say the least when he asked her that. "Dean..." She shook her head and stared at the ground.

Dean then back away, holding his hands up. "You don't have to if you don't want too, but..." He suddenly switched the charm back on and grinned. "It's going to a long way home." He dangled her bike keys in his hand.

Alice's eyes widen. She looked down and saw her keys were actually missing. "When did you-" She got off her bike and marched over to him. "Dean, I'm not playing. Give them back." She tried to snatch at the key, but he only pulled them out of her reach. "Dean!"

Dean took another step back. "Alice...we're going to need your help on this one. I can tell back in the mine, and how you saved our asses...it's going to be tough without you."

Alice stopped reaching for the keys. "Dean...it's hard for me to work with other Hunters..."

"You're afraid. I know." His soft voice caught her off guard and caused her to freeze. "You don't want to work with someone because you don't what to be responsible for another life. You don't want to lose someone. Like your brother, right?"

He read right through her like she was made of glass. It's not like she was trying to hide it though. After her break down back in the woods, it was pretty obvious. It's not that she can't trust them, it was like she was afraid to lose anyone more.

"My whole family were all very tight-knit because we were all we had in the end." Alice took a deep breath and looked him directly in the eyes that seemed to make her heart speed up and her hands shake, and when she spoke, she sounds earnest. "I loved my family."

Dean nodded and started to walk towards her again. He grabbed her hand and opened it up. "Then help me find mine. It's only going to get harder from here, and we're going to need all the help we can get." He dropped the keys back in her hand.

Alice stared down at the keys in a frozen state. She did not move and she did not utter a single word for five seconds. Alice tilted her head to the side and smiled. She remembered now. She did this job not because the wanted to, but because no one else would. She got too many thinks from Aiden. They where practically drilled in her head and one of them was that you can't just turn away from someone who needs your help, because you're only gonna regret it later.

Alice had skill above all Hunters. It runs in her family, but what's the point of having them if you're not gonna lend a hand to others.

Alice chucked and clenched the keys tightly in her grasp. She looked back up to Dean and smiled. "Let me know if your car can't keep up with me." She gave him a pat on the cheek and walked away.

Sam squinted his eyes when he didn't see Dean move. "Did she say yes?" He called out to him.

Alice held up her hand and spun it again. "Let's get going, boys!" she hopped on her bike and started it up.

Dean snapped out of his daze. He grinned like a child and walked back to his car as Sam got in the driver's seat. Dean jumped in the passengers and they slammed their doors closed almost in sync.

Dean pointed to Sam. "You better not lose to her." He warned him

Sam cracked a smile and laughed as he cranked up the Impale while Alice drove right next to them. She pulled them down the visor of her helmet and pointed right off what way they were going to go.

Alice stepped on the gas and blew out some dirt from underneath her tires. She drove out of Black Water Creek and down the long stretch of highway with the Impala's engine roaring right behind her.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**And so we start a new story since two of my other ones are coming to an end very soon. Got a HELL of a lot planned for this series since we got 15 seasons to deal with haha. I hope you like Alice Cromwell!**


	3. Death In The Water

**DEATH IN THE WATER**

Alice leaned against her motorcycle with a newspaper in her hand and a pen in the other. She searched through the local articles and came across a strange one about 18 years old, Sophie Carlton drowning in a lake. They didn't find the body or anything big enough to pull her under. Alice's eyes narrowed in suspicion and found a potential hunt in this. Marking it red with her signature red marker, she got off her bike and began to head towards the restaurant that Sam and Dean were in. Once inside, she saw Dean pointing at something.

"That's fun." Dean pointed to an attractive waitress.

Alice clicked her tongue and walked up behind Dean, smacked him in the back of the head with the newspaper.

Dean jerked up. "What?!" He grabbed the back of his head and quickly looked over his shoulder, seeing Alice looming behind him. "What was that for?" He exclaimed.

Alice didn't answer him, instead, placed the new's article between the boys and sat down on Dean's side. "Got a case." She said. "Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, 18 years old, walked into the lake but didn't walk out. The Authoritative searched through the water but came up with nothing. She's been the third lake drowning this year. None of the bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago." Alice finished and stared at the boys for answers.

"A funeral?" Sam questioned.

"That's weird, they buried an empty coffin. For, uh, closure or whatever." Dean said back.

"Closure?" Sam said in a mocking tone. "What closure? People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them."

His tone caught Dean's attention. "Something you want to say to me?"

"The tail for Dad. It's getting colder every day." He anxiously stated.

Alice raised a brow and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. "Then what do you suppose we do then?"

"I don't know. Something. Anything."

Dean suddenly cut in "You know what? I'm sick of this attitude." He said. "You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?"

"Yeah, I know you do, it's just-"

Dean cut Sam off. "I'm the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years, while you've been off to college going to pep rallies. We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there." He pointed to the article. "Okay?"

Sam rolled his eyes while Dean got distracted by a waitress that walked by. His eyes locked on her like a missile.

Sam shook his head. "All right, Manitoc?" He looked at Alice.

The hunter nodded. "Yeah, and its-" She noticed that Dean was still distracted. "Hey!" She snapped her fingers in his face.

"Huh?" Dean snapped out of it.

Alice rolled her eye. "Anyways...it's-"

* * *

Alice took the lead and drove in front of the Impala and would occasionally give the boys hand signals, basic ones like to turn left or right, 'hold' or pull over. Alice looked ahead and saw her destination with a big sign reading 'Welcome to Lake Manitoc WI.' It was a vacation spot by the looks of it with the lake and boat advertisement.

The first thing they did was pull up to the Carlton house that was pretty remote and located right beside the lake where the victim drowned in. They got out of the car and Alice shot off her bike, walking up to the house. Dean knocked on the door and Will Carlton, the son, opened up a moment later.

"Will Carlton?" Dean asked.

The young man gave a slight nod in response. "Yeah, that's right."

"I'm Agent Ford." He pointed to Sam and Alice on either side of him. "This is Agent Hamill and Carter." He pulled out a fake ID. "We're with the US Wildlife Service."

* * *

Will brought Sam, Dean, and Alice out around the house and they saw Bill Carlton off in the distance on a bench at the edge of the dock. The grieving father remained motionless like a lifeless doll without strings as he gazed out into the lake with a dead and empty look in his eyes.

Alice gave an eerie glance off towards the lake and felt her skin crawl just by looking at it. She felt something raise in the pit of her stomach and looked away from the calm waters. "How far was she out?" Alice looked back to Will.

Will buried his hands deep in his pockets. "About a hundred yards." He had a sullen look on his face and finally managed to get the rest of the words out. "That's when she got dragged down." He almost choked.

"And you're sure she didn't just drown?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Will nodded his head. "She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as in her own bathtub." He said, very sure of himself.

Sam spoke up. "So no splashing? No signs of distress?"

"No, that's what I'm telling you."

"Did you see any shadows in the water? Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?"

"No." Will only shook his head again. "Again, she was really far out there."

"You see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean asked.

"No, never. Why? Why, what do you think is out there?"

Dean gave a glance to Alice as she surveyed the lake with her eyes once more. "We'll let you know as soon as we do." He and Alice walked off.

Sam glanced to Bill. "What about your father?" He asked, and Dean and Alice stopped and turned back. "Can we talk to him?"

Will looked back to his father at the dock, then turned back. "Look, if you don't mind, I mean...he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot."

Sam gave a nod. "We understand."

They turned around and started to walk back to their car.

* * *

They then went to the police station and met up with the sheriff, Jake Devins who walked them into his office.

"Now, I'm sorry, but why does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?" Jake began.

Alice spoke up. "Are you sure it was an accident?" She questioned with a cocked eyebrow. "Will Carlton saw something grab his sister."

Jake gave her a look like he didn't believe her. "Like what?" He motioned them to sit across from his desk. "There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake. There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person unless it was the Loch Ness Monster."

Dean started to chuckle. "Yeah. Right." He gave a glance to Sam and Alice who looked unimpressed by the joke.

"Will Carlton was traumatized and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still-" Jake sat down. "We dragged that entire lake. We even ran sonar sweep, just to be sure, and there was nothing down there."

Alice crossed her legs and leaned on her arm. "Strange isn't it. This is the third missing body this year."

Jake nodded. "I know. These people are from my town. These are people I care about." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Anyway... All this...it won't be a problem much longer."

That caught Dean's attention and he furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the dam, of course," Jake spoke like Dean was supposed to know.

Dean nodded and leaned back, trying to play it cool like he totally knew what was going on. "Of course, the dam it's...uh, sprung a leak."

"It's falling apart." Jake corrected. " The feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway. In another six months, there won't be much a lake. There won't be much of a town, either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that."

"Exactly." Dean lied.

A woman then peaked her head through the door and looked into the room. She smiled and tapped the door to get their attention. "Sorry, am I interrupting?" She asked. "I can come back later."

Sam, Dean, and Alice stood up as Jake introduced her. "Gentlemen, this is my daughter."

Dean immediately shook her hand and smiled, turning on the charm to the attractive lady. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Dean."

She smiled widely. "Andrea Barr. Hi."

"Hi."

"They're from the Wildlife Service. About the lake." Jake said to her.

A small boy then walked into the room and around Andrea.

Dean noticed him and smiled. "Oh, hey there. What your name?"

He tried to be nice but the kid had a strange reaction and didn't even cast a single glance to Dean. He just turned around and left the room without a word, Andrea following after, but this time her smile fell solemnly.

"His name is Lucas," Jake answered almost sadly.

Alice stared at the child with her eyebrows up in suspicion. She turned back to Jake. "Is something wrong?" She asked.

"My grandson's been through a lot. We all have." His words carried a deep meaning and it told Alice that he probably lost someone too. Jake walked to the office door and began to show them out. "Well, if there anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

Dean stopped and turned around to face Andrea. "Thanks. You know that you mentioned it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced motel?"

Andrea smiled and answered with a kind voice. "Lakefront Motel. Go around the corner. It's about two blocks south." She told them.

"Two..." Dean pointed and tried to act like he couldn't understand. "Would you mind showing us?"

Andrea laugh when Dean played dumb. "You want me to walk you two blocks?"

Alice cut In with a confused look on her face and gave Dean a look "It's only two blocks." She lifted her hand in a 'what the hell' manner.

Dean shook off Alice's snarky comment. "Not if it's any trouble."

Andrea nodded. "I'm heading that way anyway." She saw no problem and got up, turning to Jake. "I'll be back to pick Lucas at three." Andrea kissed Lucas on the head. "We'll go to the park, okay, sweetie?"

Dean gave Jake a wave as they left.

"Thanks again," Alice called back.

* * *

As promised, Andrea took them down the sidewalk as Dean tried to come up with a conversation. Alice wishes she could just bury her head away at Dean's attempt at a pick-up.

Alice lifted her head and saw the sign for their motel. "I see it from here." She called to Andrea, smiling sarcastically. "Thanks."

Andrea nodded with a small laugh. "Two blocks like I said."

Alice laughed. "Just like you said."

Sam tried to hold his lips down to not laugh at how Alice just immediately shut down Dean attempt to hock up with Andrea, and Dean dumbfounded face didn't help. Alice and Andrea even started up a conversation themselves and seemingly left Dean and Sam in the dust.

"It must be hard for you." Andrea glanced back to the boys than to Alice

Alice snickered and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm still new, but I'm sure I can handle it." They stopped in front of the motel. "All right. Thank you, Andrea." She gave one last smile to Andrea as she walked away.

"Enjoy your stay!" Andrea called back.

Once she was gone, Alice spoke again, but this time she turned to Dean. "That was just painful. I swore I thought you were smoother than this." She shook her head like she was disappointed, but the smirk on her face was clear.

Alice walked away from the boys and headed inside the Motel to check them in. Just leaving Dean in shook and at a loss for words yet again. This seemed to be happening a lot more often with Alice around now.

Dean turned to Sam and pointed. "You see what she did just now?"

Sam laughed and began to walk to the motel as well, calling back to him. "You brought it upon yourself, dude."

* * *

Sam stared at his laptop with Alice peering over his shoulder down at the articles on screen. Dean stood behind them and started unpacking his clothes.

"So there's the three drowning victims this year," Sam read off the article.

"Any before that?" Dean asked.

Alice looked closely. "By the looks of it. Six more spread out over the past thirty-five years. The bodies were never recovered either. Whatever's doing the plunge, it's picking up the pace."

"So, what, we got a lake monster on a binge?" Dean joked.

Sam shook his head. "This whole monster theory, it, it just bugs me."

Dean walked over besides Alice and looked over Sam's shoulder to read over the article. "Why?" He asked.

"Loch Ness, uh, Lake chaplain, there are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it." Sam scrolled through the homage.

"Wait," Dean noticed something and pointed to the screen that had a name he noticed. "Barr, Christopher Barr. Where have I heard that name before?"

Alice pondered on the name for a bit because she remembered hearing it too. She snapped her fingers when it finally came to her. "Andrea Barr."

Sam read the page the name came from. "Christopher Barr, the victim in may," He said and open a new page and saw a familiar face in a picture. A picture of Lucas. He was wet and wrapped up in a blanket and stared at the camera with frightened eyes. "Oh. Christopher Barr was Andrea's husband, Lucas's father. Apparently, he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned. Three hours before the kid got rescued." Sam scratched the back of his head. "Maybe we have an eyewitness after all."

Alice walked over to the bed and slumped down. She felt a bit nauseous when hearing the story and gave a deep breath, rubbing her eyes that suddenly felt heavy. He, Lucas differently saw something out in the lake that day. She was sure the reason he's acting this way now was that he saw his own father get dragged down before his eyes, unable to do anything or understand what was going on. In the reality of it all, it probably took a while to sink in for the kid.

Dean spoke up. "No wonder that kid was so freaked out. Watching one of your parents die isn't something you get over." He said.

Alice stared at Dean from the corner of her eyes. "No, it's not..." Seeing the death of a family member is that hardest thing for someone to go through. Even now, Alice could still remember the day Aiden died like it was only yesterday. The figged cold of the mountain and the sudden warmth of his fresh blood on her skin. It's still so surreal to this day for her.

Dean looked over his shoulder at Alice and saw a dark and distant look change in her eyes. It was a very hard gaze that made his skin shudder for some reason. Dean wanted to ask what was wrong, but he kinda already had an idea what was going on in her head.

* * *

The park was the place to be if you were a child. Kids ran around playing and cheering with their friends. All for Lucas who sat down in front of a bench in silence and solitude, coloring with his toy soldier around him like they were his friends.

Andrea looked up from Lucas and saw Sam, Dean, and Alice walking up to her.

"Can we join you?" Sam asked.

Andrea looked over to were Lucas is. "I'm here with my son." She said.

Dean followed her gaze and saw Lucas. "Oh. Mind if I say hi?" He said and began to make his way over to the child.

Andrea spoke up when Alice took a seat next to her. "Tell your friend this whole Jerry Maguire thing is not gonna work on me." She said with an amused look.

Alice gave her a side glance and looked back to Dean and Lucas. "I don't think it's about that."

Dean strolled over to Lucas who didn't even lift his head or acknowledged him.

"How's it going?" Dean asked and kneeled down next to the bench where Lucas was coloring. He then picked up one of the green army men. "Oh, I used to love these things." He then proceeded to imitate a gun and explosion sound before knocking the toy soldier down. "So crayons is more your thing? That's cool." Dean noticed Lucas's drawings, one being a big black swirl and the other was a red bicycle. "Hey, these are pretty good. You mind if I sit and draw with you for a while?" Dean took a seat down on the bench and grabbed a crayon. "I'm not so bad myself."

There was nothing but silence for a while as Lucas continued to mind his own business while Dean drew on a sheet of paper.

"You know, I'm thinking you can hear me, you just don't want to talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something really bad. I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I saw something." Dean paused. "Anyway. Well, maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or, uh...or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don't even have to say anything. You could draw me a picture of what you saw that day, with your dad, on the lake." Lucas said nothing as usual. "Okay, no problem. This is for you." Dean held up his drawing that was nothing but four stick figures. "This is my family." He pointed to each person. "That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother, and that me." Nothing. "All right, so I'm a sucky artist. I'll see you around, Lucas." Dean got up and walked back over to his friends.

Lucas then leaned over and picked up Dean's drawing.

Dean walked back over to his friends just when Andrea spoke.

"Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me. Not since his dad's accident." She said.

"Yeah, we heard. Sorry." Dean apologized.

Alice leaned back on the bench. "What are the doctors saying?"

"That it's kind of post-traumatic stress."

"That can't be easy. For either of you." Sam said sincerely.

"We moved in with my dad. He helps out a lot. It's just...when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw..." There was a long pause.

"Kids are strong," Alice spoke up with a firm voice, staring ahead. "They can hold in and deal with a lot of things." She spoke like she had the experience, and that caught the boys attention since they knew it was true with her background.

"You know, he used to have such a life. He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with his army men. I just wish..." She didn't finish when Lucas suddenly walked over to them with a drawing in hand. "Hey, sweetie."

Lucas said nothing but handed one of his drawings over to Dean. He looked down and saw that it was a picture of a house, a cabin what it really looked like. Alice cocked a brown and stared at it for a while, feeling that it was kinda familiar.

"Thanks. Thanks, Lucas." Dean said.

* * *

Dean and Sam turned their head when the door to their motel suit opened up and Alice walked through. She had a grim look when she threw her black leather jacket on the chair. "So..." She said and sat down. "I just drove by the Carlton house, and there was an ambulance there. Will Carlton is dead." She said in a bleak tone.

Dean gave her a baffled look. "He drowned?"

Alice nodded. "In the sink." She reached to her bag that was laying on the table, pulling out her hunter's journal. She ran her hands across the old purple leather that had a pentagram over the front. It was really rough to the touch. "This thing is upping its body count. The lake's draining and it knows." She spoke in a sharp panic and opened the journal. "It's running out of time."

"And if it can get through the pipes, it can get to anyone, almost anywhere." Dean then sat up. "This is gonna happen again soon."

Alice flipped through the pages that were cascaded in ink from decades of Cromwell hunters that have used it. "It took both of Bill Carlton's kids, so, it does have something to do with him, but that's not all." She looked over her shoulder as the boys grabbed their jackets. "Luca's dad, Chris—Bill Carlton's grandson." she stared at the boys with a concerned look.

"So we go talk to Mr. Carlton." Dean started, seeing how that might be their only lead, but Alice only shook her head.

"The man lost his whole family. I don't think he'll talk anytime soon." Alice blinked when something popped in her head. She snapped her fingers and pointed to Dean. "But I noticed something else when I was down at the house. You have the drawing that Luca's gave you?"

Dean lifted a brow and got up. He brought the folded up picture out of his jacket pocket. "Why?" He handed it to her.

Alice unfolded the picture and stared at it for a moment. "I knew something about this looked familiar." She lifted the picture up for them to see. "I think this is the Carlton's house."

Both Sam and Dean stared at the picture before it clicked in their heads, and it was there that they figured out that Mr. Carlton isn't the only one who knew something. Lucas did too, apparently.

* * *

"I'm sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea," Andrea told Alice and boys as they stood in the doorway of her home after hours.

"I just need a minute." Dean tried to convince her

"He won't say anything. What good's it gonna do?" Andrea didn't see a way how It would help at all, for her son hasn't said a word.

Alice spoke up "We all know something is happening out there. More people will get hurt at this rate." Her voice was stern and she was frustrated with the lack of time they had.

"My husband, the others, they just drowned. That's all."

Alice took a breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do you really believe that 'that's all?'" Her ice eyes stared right into Andrea's. "You can believe that, but if there's even a possibility that something else is going on, let us talk to your son. Doing something is better than doing nothing. But please..." Alice tried to hide any sign of frustration she had so she wouldn't scare Andrea, and let them see her son. "Let us talk to him."

Andrea could see Alice's eyes. They were as firm as a stone and she just knew that Alice wouldn't give in.

* * *

Lucas sat on the floor in his room and colored away with his crayons like usual with a dead expression on his young face. Andrea, Alice and the boys approached the doorway and stared into his room. Lucas didn't even look up.

Dean slowly approached the child and kneeled down in front of him, speaking as gently as he could. "Hey, Lucas. You remember me?" He asked, but Lucas was unresponsive like he wasn't even there.

Alice stared from the doorway down at the pictures and noticed that Lucas has drawn two more pictures of the same red bicycle.

"You know, I, uh, I wanted to think you for the last drawing. But the thing is, I need your help again." Dean pulled out the drawing of the house and placed it in front of Lucas. "How did you know to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me."

Lucas hasn't said a word, made a sound, or even look up to acknowledge that Dean was even there. He just kept on coloring.

"You're scared." Dean was finally able to understand what was going through his child's head. "It's okay. I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too.

Lucas dropped his crayon and finally looked up to Dean. He reached down and picked up a drawing and handed it to Dean. The picture had a white church, a yellow house, and a boy in a blue baseball cap with a red bicycle in front of a wooden fence.

"Thanks, Lucas."

* * *

Dean drove down the road with Alice leading the way as usual while Sam looked over the picture that Lucas drew.

"Andrea said that kid never drew like that till his dad died," Dean said, glancing over to the drawing.

Sam shrugged. "There are cases—going through a traumatic experience could make people more sensitive to premonitions, psychic tendencies." He explained.

"Whatever's out there, what if Lucas is tapping into it somehow? I mean, it's only a matter of time before somebody else drowns, so if you got a better lead, please." Dean said with a frustrated voice.

"All right, we got another house to find."

"The only problem is there are about thousand yellow two-stories In this country alone." Dean rolled his eyes.

Sam pointed to the church on the picture. "See this church? I bet there's less than a thousand of those around here."

Dean grinned. "Oh, college boy thinks he's so smart."

Sam scoffed and looked away, but what Dean said to Lucas still bothered him. "You know, um...what you said about mom... You never told me that before."

"It's no big deal." Dean shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Oh God, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?"

Sam cracked a smile and looked away.

* * *

Sam, Dean, and Alice came up to the church that was exactly like the one in Lucas's drawing, down to the staple. They glanced over and saw the yellow house with the wooden fence.

They looked at each other before crossing the fence to make their way over to the house.

* * *

They stood inside the house that belonged to an old lady, Mrs. Sweeney.

"We're sorry to bother you, ma'am, but does a little boy live here, by chance? He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle." Dean asked the lady and Mrs. Sweeney's eye became glossy.

"No, sir." She said in a breathy tone, lowing her head and shaking it. "Not for a long time. Peter's been gone for thirty-five years now." Her voice shook. "The police never—I never had any idea what happened. He just disappeared."

Alice looked over to the framed picture of Peter and lifted it up, looking at the young boy. Something green caught her eyes though. Green army men. She bumbled Dean in the side and gestured her head over to them.

"Losing him..." Mrs. Sweeney took a breath. "It's...it's worse than dying." She looked at them with her old yet sorrowful eyes that were red with potential tears.

"Did he disappear from here? I mean, from this house?" Sam asked.

"He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school, and he never showed up." She explained.

Alice picked a picture off the mirror and looked at it. One was the boy Peter and the other next to him...

She flipped the picture over and took a deep sigh when she saw the name. "Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton, nineteen seventy."

* * *

Alice and the boys were breaking the speed limit to get back to Bill's house, knowing that he does have something to do with Peter's death. He was hiding something. There's a chance that it was Bill who killed Peter, and Peter came back as a pissed off spirit, looking for revenge. Either way, Bill's in trouble.

They finally got the Carlton's house and skid to a halt. Alice ripped her helmet off her head to look at the docks but saw no one there.

Sam then pointed out the sound of an engine. "Hey, check it out." He pointed to Bill going out on the lake with his boat.

They took off down the shore as their feet slammed against the sand before breaking it down the dock but came to a halt at the edge. They began to scream out to Bill to come back but the man didn't turn around. Suddenly, some unknown force caused the water to rise up and flip Bill's boat over. Bill fell into the water but didn't resurface. They were only able to watch on in horror as the water rippled like mad.

* * *

Lucas sat beside his mother in the police station and rocked back and forth almost nervously like a frightened child.

Andrea noticed and grabbed his shoulder. "Baby, what's wrong?" Just then Jake walked in along with Alice and the boys. "Alice, I didn't expect to see you and the guys here." She got up from her chair.

Jake eyed her. "So now you're on first-name basis? What are you doing here?" He walked up to her.

"I brought you lunch." She gestured to a big bag.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I don't really have the time."

"I heard about Bill Carlton. Is it true? Is something going on in the lake?"

That's what Alice wanted to know too. Bill was the only person they knew of that could answer the questions about Peter Sweeney's death, but now he's dead. If Bill's dead then the death's should stop as well since the spirit got what he wanted.

"Right now we don't know what the truth is. But I think it might be better if you and Lucas went on home." Jake insisted.

The color on Lucas's face drained instantly as panic set in. He jumped off his chair and grabbed Dena's arm, whining and desperate.

"Lucas, hey, what is it?" Dean tried to ask the scared child but Lucas only whined some more. "Lucas."

Andrea tried to pull Lucas away. "Lucas." She called to him.

"Lucas, it's okay. It's okay. Hey, Lucas, it's okay. It's okay." Dean patted him on the head as Lucas was dragged away.

Andrea pulled Lucas out of the station but Lucas didn't break eye contact with Dean the whole time till he was completely out of sight.

This was a whole new side of Lucas that Alice never thought she could see. He was pale and panicked to the point where he was trying to force Dean to stay for whatever reason. Alice didn't know what to think about this new situation, but she knew that it left an awful feeling in her chest when she saw his scared eyes pleading for help.

Jake throws down his jacket and went to his office to which they followed right after him. Jake sat down on his desk and Alice and the boys sat down on the chairs in front of him.

"Okay, just so I'm clear." Jake began. "You see...something attack Bill's boat, sending Bill—who is a very good swimmer, by the way—into the drink, and you never see him again?"

Dean glanced over to Sam. "Yeah, that about sums it up." He says.

"And I'm supposed to believe this, even though I've already sonar-swept that entire lake? And what you're describing is impossible? And your not Wildlife Service." That remark caused their eyes to widen. "That's right, I checked. Department never heard of you three."

Alice clicked her tongue and looked away. She hated it when cops took the extra mile to confirm their identity. It always screwed things up. She could already tell where this was going.

Dean tried to explain themselves. "See, now, we can explain that."

"Enough. Please. The only reason you're breathing free air is one of Bill's neighbors saw him steering out that boat just before you did. So, we have a couple of options here. I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton's disappearance. Or, we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you get into your car, you put this town in your rear view mirror, and you don't ever darken my doorstep again."

Hit the nail on the head with that one.

Alice groaned loudly and got up off her chair and gestured for the boys to get up as well. "Fine. We'll leave. We'll put this town in our rear view mirror and never come back, but only...and only...on one condition." She turned around and looked Jake directly in the eyes with a stony look on her face.

Jake scoffed at her. "Do you really think you have the right to make demands?" He crossed his arms and leaned back. "Go ahead, I'm curious about what it is?"

Alice smiled as she did back in Black Water Ridge. The smile that didn't reach her ears and left a chill in the air. She was pissed and when she spoke she was serious. "Then you pay for the funeral." She saw Jake's sarcastic smile fall. "You hammer the last nail into the coffin, and you dig that damn hole by yourself." She gave him the sharpest, iciest glare before storming out of the room.

Dean walked beside Sam as they headed out after her. He looked at his brother and mouth the word 'Wow'.

* * *

It was the middle of the night as Alice's sped off down the road with the Impala behind her. As promised, they were heading out of town and putting it in their rear view mirror for good, but something just didn't sit right with Alice. She had too many questions that needed to be answered. Yes, she believes that Peter was after Bill, but why was Lucas so scared and did Chris Barr really just drown or did something pull him down? Alice didn't know what to think, but it was all too strange, strange to just leave.

Alice pulled on the breaks and burned the rubber off her tires before coming to a screeching halt. Dean quickly slammed the breaks as the Impala swerved to the side to avoid hitting Alice.

Dean rolled down the window and called out to her. "Alice, what the hell are you doing!? I could've hit you!"

Alice groaned loudly and pulled her helmet off and began to shout back at them. "Are were really just gonna leave like this?" She asked.

Sam looked at her confused. "Isn't is over? If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter's spirit got its revenge, case closed. The spirit should be at rest."

Alice's face contorted into concern. "But what if it's not? What if we leave and the murders continue. What if we missed something?"

"But why would you think that?"

This time Dean spoke. "Because Lucas was really scared, right?" He looked at her, completely understand what she was getting at because it was bothering him too.

Alice rolled up closer to the window and leaned her head in to speak clearly. "I can't help to think that it's not over." She frowned.

Sam looked between the two. "That's what this is about?"

Dean spoke. "I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's okay."

"Who are you? And what have you done with my brother?"

Dean rolled his eyes." Shut up."

* * *

The blaze red bike and Impala slowly drove up to Andrea's house and quickly got out, seeing the light still on even after dark.

"Are you sure about this? It's pretty late, guys." Sam gave Alice and Dean a concerned look.

Dean walked up to the door and ring the bell but the moment it buzzed Lucas swung open the door, desperately afraid and breathing like mad.

"Lucas? Lucas!" Dean tried to consul the terrified child.

Alice looked passed Lucas and saw water trickling down the stairs. In an instant, she rushed past Lucas and bolted up the slippery steps, skipping almost every other one.

"Alice!" Dean and Sam rushed after her with Lucas behind them.

Her suspicions were confirmed in the most terrifying way possible. Alice ran down the hall and saw water spilling from underneath the door leading into the bathroom. She grabbed the doorknob and tried to open it but it didn't even budge.

"Damn it!" Alice cursed.

"Alice, get out of the way!" Dean warned her.

Alice moved out of the way as Dean raised his foot and kicked the door open, ripping it off its hinges. Inside they saw a bath full to the brim with murky cloudy water. Sam ran in and reached his hands into the tub and felt Andrea underneath the water. He tried to pull her up but some unknown force kept her submerged and tried it's very best to drown her.

"Alice!" Sam screamed for her.

Alice reached in and wrapped her arms around Andrea's body. They both began to pull and Andrea slowly rose up enough to gasp for air till her face was yanked back down into the water.

"Shit!" Alice was risking it. She stepped one leg into the murky water and began to push off the floor of the tub to more leverage.

They felt whatever force holding Andrea down began to loosen its grip. Alice made one more last effort to use her other leg and press it up again the wall and kicked off. Andrea was released for the water shackles in that instant and the force behind Sam and Alice's pulling caused all three of them to fall back into the floor. Once Andrea was out of the tub, she gasped for air and expelled all the murky water from her lungs, but luckily she began to breathe normally again.

Alice signed in relief. She took her coat off and covered Andrea's body with it before the tub caught her eye. She looked over the edge and saw the water slowly drain away, revealing that nothing was in the water at all to pull her down as it did. She feared this much. So it was Peter's spirit trying to drown Andrea while she was in the tub. So it wasn't just Bill's family, it's her's as well. Alice looked back at Dean and nodded to the tub with a grim look on her face. Dean just stood there holding a frighted Lucas back. The boy was as pale as a ghost.

* * *

Lucas wasn't the only one who was pale, Andrea was too. After she dried off and pulled on some conformable clothes, she sat at the table with Sam and Alice while Dean looked around the notebooks on the bookshelves.

Sam tried his best to talk to a devastated Andrea. "Can you tell us?"

"No." She said, shaking her head. "It doesn't make sense." Andrea then began to cry as her eyes became red and puffy. She covered her face with her hands "I'm going crazy."

"No, you're not," Alice said in a stern yet confident voice. She used her arms and pulled Andrea's hand away from her face. "Just tell us what happened, okay?" Her voice wasn't as soft as Sam's but it wasn't harsh either.

"I heard...I thought I heard...there was this voice." Andrea said in a cracked whisper.

"What did it say?" Sam asked.

"It said...it said 'Come play with me'." Alice felt goosebumps running up her arm at Andrea's words.

Just then Dean walked over to them and placed a picture book down on the table in front of Andrea. "Do you recognize the kids in these pictures?"

Alice looked down at the picture Dean was trying to show Andrew. It was an old picture of a group of young boys with the words 'Explorer Troop 37' on it.

"What?" Andrea said. "Uh, no. I mean that's my dad right there. He must be about twelve in these pictures." She pointed to her young dad, but what caught Alice's eyes was who Jake was standing next too. It was Peter Sweeney.

Dean shared a look between Alice and Sam as the gears began to connect once again in their heads as pieces were placed together.

"Chris Barr's drowning. The connection wasn't to Bill Carlton. It must have been to the sheriff." Dean figured.

"Bill and the sheriff—they were both involved with Peter." Sam finally understood.

Alice signed deeply and ran her hands through her hair. She glanced to the side and noticed Lucas was staring out the window, motionless. "Lucas?" She called out.

Dean then noticed too. "Lucas, what is it?"

Lucas stopped staring out the window and went to the door, he opened it and walked out into the woods towards the shore as they followed after him.

"Lucas, honey?" Andrea called out.

Lucas stopped dead in his tracks upon a bed of moss. He looked at the ground then back at Dean.

Now he got it. Dean grabbed Alice by the shoulder and pointed back to the house. "Alice, I want you to take Lucas and Andrea back to the house and stay there, okay?" He looked at her then back at the moss spot.

Alice looked down at the moss spot with an eerie look. "Yeah, sure." She tapped Lucas on the shoulder and began to lead him and Andrea back to the house for the boys to dig up whatever was beneath the bed of moss.

* * *

After grabbing shovels from the Impala, Dean and Sam began to dig into the ground. They struck their shovel's into the dirt till Sam's hit something that made a 'clank' sound. They kneeled down and dug with their hands before they felt something and pulled it up. A rusty red bicycle.

"Peter's bike." Said Sam.

They heard the sound of a clicking gun, and they turned to see Jake pointing his gun at them, shaking.

"Who are you?" Jake demanded with a wary and panicked voice.

* * *

Alice looked out the window and her eyes slowly widened when she saw Jake pointing a gun at Sam and Dean. Instinctively, her hand moved down to the gun in her thigh holster. Her fingers tracing the handle as she watched Jake like a hawk.

* * *

"Put the gun down, Jake," Sam ordered and dropped their shovels.

"How did you know that was there?" Jake seemed different from usual. His cool demeanor changed completely and he was pale.

"What happened?" Dean demanded "You and Bill kill Peter, drowned him in the lake and then buried the bike? You can't bury the truth, Jake. Nothing stays buried."

* * *

"Andrea." Alice moved her head over but didn't take her eyes off Jake and the boys. "You dad's here...and he's got a gun."

"What?" Andrea looked out the window and saw the scene unfold. "Oh, God. Alice, please watch Lucas." She was about to go towards the door.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Alice called back.

"No, I'm fine." She walked outside towards the scene as Jake began to yell at the boys.

* * *

Jake sneered at them with his gun still raised. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney thirty-five years ago. That's what the hell I'm talking about." Dean growled.

Andrea ran up to them. "Dad!"

"And now you got one seriously pissed-off spirit."

"It's gonna take Andrea, Lucas, everyone you love," Sam said. "It's gonna drown them. And it's gonna drag their bodies God knows where, so you can feel the same pain Peter's mom felt. And then, after that, it's gonna take you, and it's not gonna stop until it does."

Jake scoffed. "Yeah, and how do you know that?"

"Because that's exactly what it did to Bill Carlton." Sam raised his voice.

"Listen to yourselves, both of you. You're insane." Jake didn't believe them, no—more like he didn't want to believe it.

Dean spoke. "I don't really give a rat's ass what you think of us. But if we're gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn't just let him go in the lake." Dean feared for what Jake was going to say.

Andrea stared at her dad in disbelief. "Dad, is any of this true?"

"No," Jake said. "Don't listen to them. They're liars and they're dangerous." He insisted.

"Something tried to drown me. Chris died on that Lake. Dad, look at me." She pleaded with him and he did, he looked at her. "Tell me you-you didn't kill anyone." Jake was silent and he looked away, saying it all for Andrea and the boys. "Oh my God."

Jake's lips quivered as his gun shakes. "Billy and I were at the lake. Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time, it got rough. We were holding his head under the water. We didn't mean to. But we held him under too long and he drowned." Jake's voice cracked as the truth came flooding out of his mouth. "We let the body go, and it sank." Dean gave a glance to Sam. "Oh, Andrea, we were kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But, Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost? It's not rational."

It was worse than they thought. Without the body, they can't put the spirit to rest. "All right, listen to me, all of you. We need to get you away from this lake, as far as we ran, right now." Dean planned.

* * *

Alice's hand finally fell away from her gun and she took a breath when she realized that Jake wasn't going to shoot the boys. Her worried were still there though, knowing what happened in the past and why this thing was trying to drown everyone involved in it, including their families. They were in danger just by being this close to the lake.

"Lucas, listen, I'm going to need-" Alice turned around but realized that Lucas was nowhere to be seen. "Lucas?" She called out and walked around the kitchen to search for the silent child. Alice turned back around and looked out the window. The color drained from her face when she the familiar gray clothes standing on the dock. "Shit!" She screamed and bolted out of the house.

Dean turned his head when he heard Alice's shriek and he saw her running towards the docks at full speed. They turned to the lake and saw Lucas leaning over the water reaching his hand down into the murky unknown.

Horror rose in their faces when Jake screamed out to him. "Lucas!"

Alice broke through the forestline and came upon the dock where she saw Lucas leaning into the water trying to grab one of his little army men. She could hear a little boy's voice mix in with the air with a soft whisperer. "_Come play with us!_" The voice said in a bone-chilling tone.

Alice could feel a hollow pit raise up in her stomach as she feared the worse would doom this boy if she waited any longer. "Lucas!"

Her heels slammed against the wood palettes and she slid on her knees over to Lucas, snatching his hand out from the water before anything could happen. Alice breathed heavily and her face was flushed red. She stood up, taking the boy up into her arms like a protective mama bear and finally felt the cold wave of relief wash down her spine. Her skin was crawling, leaving chill bumps, but just in time. That was all that mattered to Alice.

"All right, all right...Let's get back to the house." She said in a breathy tone, closing her eyes.

Alice spun around to walk away off the dock when she suddenly heard the sound of splashing water behind her. There was a distinct noise of wet flesh hitting the wooden floor and soon felt something tug on the back of her jacket. Alice turned around and saw Peter Sweeny's empty gray eyes staring into her with his blue lips gushing up murky water. He was half reaching out of the water and used one hand to brace himself and the other to grab her jacket. Suddenly, she felt a hard pull and immediately released Lucas when the force of the yank full her back. Alice's voice shouted out for the boys before she slashed into the water, vanishing in a standing below the murkiness.

Sam and Dean ran out of the woods just in time to see Alice fall back into the lake. Jake stopped suddenly though at the bank when he saw Peter's blue face half-submerged in the water, staring a hole into him before sinking back down.

Dean and Sam ran across the deck in a dead sprint to the edge. "Alice! No!" Dean yelled. They didn't hesitate and just dove into the water after her.

Andrea ran behind them and stopped at the edge. "Oh my, God!" She grabbed her son and pulled him back away from the docks. "Where is she!" She trembled and her eyes scanned for anyone below the surface.

Dean was the first one to emerge but came up empty-handed. He called to Sam when he came back up too. "Where the hell is she?"

"I don't know! I can't find her!" Sam shook his head.

They dove back down below the water for at least three minutes to try and make another sweep. Time ticked away for them and the chances of them finding Alice alive were becoming slim.

Jake took off his coat and began to step into the water while weeping. "Peter, if you can hear me...please, Peter, I'm sorry." He floated in the lake and looked around.

Andrea looked over to see her father in the water. "Daddy, no!"

Sam and Dean surface one more and saw what Jake was trying to do.

"Jake no!" Dean called out to him.

Jake cried while sputtering out his words. "I'm so—I'm so sorry. No more...no more. Please take me. Please, Peter. Just let this be over!"

Sam and Dean jumped when there were suddenly three hallow banging noises coming from underwater with bubbles rising to the surface. They gave each other a look before diving back down.

Jake looked around and was just confused. He knew that Peter wanted him dead, but why wasn't he taking him yet? What happened?

It was all quite as the water soon calmed down for the moment before there was a break and the boys surfaced with their arms wrapped around Alice's shoulders. She gasped for air and coughed up the water that was inside her lungs as the color on her skin returned to normal. Dean helped Alice back to shore and Sam dragged a stunned Jake out too. Dean fell back and wrapped his arms around Alice from behind and gave her a pat on the shoulder, in which Alice returned with a lazy and exhausted smile

Sam sat down beside them and glanced over to her, baffled at what happened and how she got out of it. "Alice...what the hell happened down there?"

Alice took a breath and patted Dean on the arm before gesturing to her gun. "That bastard was dragging me down...so I shot him with three iron rounds."

Sam tried to process what she just said but could actually imagine Alice shooting her gun in the deep murky waters where you shouldn't be able to see anything. She was able to calm down enough to realize that she had iron rounds in her gun that would work on a spirit, and she managed to buy herself some time to get out of the water.

Dean could only laugh with a grin spread across his face. He wrapped his arms tighten around Alice's soaked body. He leaned his head down into her neck and gave a low whisperer. "You're awesome, Alice. That's my girl. "

They bodies weighed heavily with the water soaked through to their clothes. They laid along the shore with the sun beating down on them and the calm water that didn't have a suspicious ripple in sight.

* * *

Alice zipped up her riding suit and laid her helmet on the handlebars. She walked back over to the boys and tossed her bike keys into the air. "You boys ready?" She asked them.

Dean finished loading his duffel into the back of the Impala and shut the lit. "Ready when you are."

Andrea walked to them with Lucas behind her, carrying a tray of sandwiches. "Guys." She called out to them.

Alice looked past Andrea and noticed Jake trailing behind them too but his head was down, looking ashamed.

Andrea said and gestured to the tray. "We're glad we caught you. We just, uh, we made you lunch for the road."

Lucas looked to his mother and spoke with a small voice. "Can I give it to them now?"

"Of course." Andrea kissed Lucas on the head.

Dean nodded to the Impala. "Come on, Lucas, let's load this into the car." He and Lucas walked away for the moment.

Sam looked at Andrea. "How are you holding up?"

"It's just gonna take a long time to sort through everything, you know." She smiled weakly and looked at Alice. "Alice, are you doing fine?"

Alice shrugged. "I'm kinda used to it so..." A grin came to her lips as a laugh escaped.

Dean sat down in the car. "All right, if you're gonna talk now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it one more time," he ordered to Lucas.

Lucas smiled. "Zeppelin rules!" He cheered.

"That's right, up high." Dean held his hand up for a high-five in which Lucas gleefully returned. "You take care of your mom, okay?"

"All right." Lucas walked back over to his mother.

Andrea smiled and wrapped her arms around Lucas before looking back at Dean. "Thank you." She said.

Alice was surprised to hear Lucas's voice, but a smile rested to her lips as she signed. She glanced over to Jake. "You gonna leave town till the lake drains, right? How are you holding up?"

Jake nodded his head slowly. "Yeah. I'm going to have Andrea, Lucas and I leave and come back when it's done." He said, but Alice noticed that he was avoiding eye contact.

Alice moved in his line of sight. "You're going to be fine. Just stay away from this town for now, okay?"

Jake nodded once more before looking her straight in the eyes. "Thank you. I don't know what else to say, just...thank you."

Alice held her hand out and Jake shook it tight. She could feel him pouring every ounce of thankfulness into his handshake and the honesty coming from his eyes too. This woman saved Lucas and almost got killed herself. There were no words he could use to satisfy his thankfulness. Just...'Thank you.'

Dean called out to Alice. "Sweetheart, we gotta go." He walked around to the driver's side of the Impala as Sam got in. "We're gonna run out of daylight before we hit the road."

Alice nodded and gave Jake a pat on the shoulder. She walked over to her bike and jammed her keys in, her bike roaring to life. She straddled the seat and pulled her helmet over her head.

Dean started up the Impala and Bad Company's Movin' on began to play on the radio. He gestured for Alice to take the lead as she drove up to his side. She nodded and pulled her visor down over her face, waving the family off, she burning rubber down the road, the roar of the engine screaming into their ears as she sped down off in a cloud of smoke with the Impale racing after her.


	4. Phantom Traveler

**PHANTOM TRAVELER**

Dean laid on his stomach fast asleep in the darkly lit motel room that harbored total silence. His eyes snapped wide awake when the sound of the front door creaked open with two pairs of footsteps walked in, looking through the stained glass wall blocking the entrance to the room. The door slammed shut as Dean slowly reached under his pillow for a weapon. He whipped his head around to face the intruders but realized that it was only Sam and Alice, both of them carrying a cup of coffee and pastries.

"Morning, sunshine," Sam said sarcastically.

"Remove your hand from the pillow before you shoot your eye out," Alice spoke dryly and walked over to the desk-side table to set two cups down.

Dean groaned loudly and looked up at Alice with his groggy eyes. "What time is it?"

"Uh," Sam took a glance outside. "It's about five forty-five."

"In the morning?"

"Yep." Both Sam and Alice said.

"Where does the day go?" Dean reluctantly sat up in bed. "Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I grabbed a couple of hours."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Liar. Cause I was up at three while you were watching a George Foreman infomercial. Alice was searching the web too...if I remember." His mind was still a bit groggy from last night so he only had faint memories of what Alice was doing. Something then came to mind though, cause he doesn't actually recall Alice even getting some sleep either. He had a habit of staying up late and she was always up too with him when he did. He usually falls asleep before she does. "Alice, when was the last time you got a good nights sleep?"

Alice sat on the bed opposite from Dean and popped open the pastry box. "Ah...I actually have mild cases of insomnia a couple of times a week, so it's hard for me to sleep sometimes." She shrugged her shoulders and stuck her hand into the box to pull out a blueberry donut.

Dean stared at her when it clicked in his head. "Did this start to happen around the time Aiden passed?"

Alice's eyes shifted a bit before she frowned. "Yeah..." she said in a small voice and reached for her cup of black coffee. "Like Sam, I have nightmares about Aiden every so often." She took the drink to her lips and fell silent.

Sam sat down beside Alice and looked at his brother. "Does this never keep you up at night?" Dean only shook his head when he was handed a cup. "Never? You're never afraid?"

Dean shook his head. "No, not really?"

Sam scoffed. He reached over to Dean's pillow and pulled out a large hunting knife and held it up for everyone to see.

Dean took the knife back. "That's not fear. That is a precaution, and besides, Alice does the same thing." He gestured to her.

Sam eyed Alice before reaching over and lifting her pillow that had a fully loaded gun underneath. An HK VP9 with scary accuracy, especially if Alice was the one using it. Sam laughed when he saw it since he was expecting just a bigger knife, but no, she just had to take the extra mile and used a gun instead. "Really?"

Alice shrugged and placed the pillow right back over the gun. "I survived this long and the last thing I need is some dumbass jumping me when I'm trying to sleep."

Dean looked at Sam and gave him a 'told you so' look. He suddenly began to hear his phone ran and looked down. He cocked a brow and picked it up, sharing a look between Alice and Sam who were also wondering why someone would call. He answered it with a skeptical and confused tone. "Hello?"

* * *

Alice and the boys later met up in a hanger with the guy who called Dean so abruptly in the morning. His name was Jerry Panoski, a guy that Dean and John helped a while back with a poltergeist case.

"Thanks for making the trip so quickly," Jerry thanked them. "I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around." He looked back at Sam. "Dean and your dad really helped me out."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, he told me. It was a poltergeist?" he said.

"Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart," he said grimly. "Tell you something, if it wasn't for you and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive. Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I was. I'm—taking some time off." Sam stuttered and got a raised eyebrow from Alice.

"Well, he was really proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time." Jerry said.

"He did?" Sam generally looked surprised because that sounded like the last thing his dad would say about him, especially after their big fight.

"Yeah, you bet he did. Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?" He looked to Dean.

Dean quickly explained a cover story. "He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now."

"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam. Even trade, huh?"

Alice snickered and patted Sam hard on the back while he stifled a smile.

They quickly moved into his office where a CD was waiting. "I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was right up your alley." He placed it in the drive. "Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for united Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours."

The CD was played and the panicked sound of a pilot was heard. "_Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! This is United Britania 2485—immediate instruction help! United Britania 2485, I copy your message—Maybe experiencing some mechanical failure..._" The voice was cut off when this loud and ominous whooshing sound blasted into the recording. Alice and the boys listen quietly as it played when the line went dead and the recording stopped.

"Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south. Now, they're saying mechanical failure. The cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board. Only seven got out alive. The pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh...well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault." Jerry explained.

Alice nodded slowly. "Okay. I think we're gonna need passenger manifest and list of survivors."

Dean then spoke up. "Ah, uh, anyway can we take a look at the wreckage?" He asked.

"The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage...fellas, the NTSB has it on lockdown in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."

Dean frowned and glanced to Alice but she gave him a hand gesture that said that she would handle it.

* * *

It felt like hours now since Alice dipped inside a Copy Jack store and had Sam and Dean wait outside beside the Impala. They wondered what she was doing that took so long, but soon enough she finally walked out. She had a cocky smirk on her lips and waved around three laminated cards.

"You've been in there forever," Sam said to her.

Alice gave him a raised eyebrow but her smirk didn't fade. "I'll remember to say that to you when we get caught with horribly made fake badges." She said dryly and handed two over to Dean.

Dean snickered when he looked over the badges that looked almost to good to be true. "You can't rush perfection, Sammy." He handed one to Sam.

Sam looked at it while reaching inside the Impala to grab his laptop. "Homeland Security? That's pretty illegal, even for us." He placed the laptop on the hood of the car.

"Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times." Dean said.

Alice walked up beside Sam and stared at the laptop at what he found when she was away. "All right, so, what did you boys get?"

"Well..." Sam opened his laptop to a voice recorder page. "There's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder. Listen." He played the recording and a new voice was heard.

"_No survivors!_" A scratchy voice said.

Alice felt a chill run down her spine when she heard the voice. "'No survivors'? Weren't their seven survivors?" This got her confused and she rested her chin on her hands.

Dean glanced at her. "So, what are you thinking? A haunted flight?" He asked Alice.

"Hmm..." Alice signed and leaned her head back. "There's loads of history on spirits and death omens on planes and ships."

"Like phantom travelers?" Sam pointed out.

Alice clicked her tongue and pointed to him. "Exactly. Remember flight 401? Where there was a crash and they used the parts of that plane and placed it other ones, then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those."

"You think we're dealing with that?" Sam asked but Alice only shrugged her shoulders.

Dean cut in. "All right, so, survivors, which one do you want to talk to first?"

Sam brought out the list he was given. "Third on the list. Max Jaffey."

"Why him?"

"Well, for one, he's from around here. And two. If anyone saw anything weird, he would." Sam said, sure of himself.

Alice looked up. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, I spoke to his mother. And she told me where to find him. "

* * *

They were led to a local psychiatric ward, Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital that Max himself checked himself into. This raised a red flag for Alice and immediately told her that Max, without a doubt, saw something on the flight before the crash.

They walked beside a limping Max through the garden of the hospital and tried their best to get anything they can out of this young man who didn't seem that eager to relive the horror story.

"I don't understand," Max said and gave them a perplexed look. "I already spoke with Homeland Security."

Alice rivaled his suspicions with her professionalism, keeping her voice firm and unshaken. "Well, some new information has come in. So if you could answer a couple questions for us, then that would be much appreciated."

"Just before the plan went down, did you notice anything...unusual," Sam began.

"Like what?" Max asked.

Dean followed up to see if he can narrow down the monster list of what caused it. "Strange lights weird noises, maybe. Voices."

"No, nothing."

The four of them sat down at a table.

"Mr. Joffey-" Dean began but Max quickly corrected him.

"Jaffey." Max corrected.

Alice internally rolled her eyes. "Could you answer this for me. You," she pointed to him. "You checked yourself in here, right? Why?"

The young man scoffed. "I was a little stressed. I survived a plane crash." Alice gave him a long stare as she could see right through him. His shivered in his skin at her hard stare. "I...I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Alice cut in firmly. "You saw something or you _think_ you saw something. No matter how strange it might be..." She took a breath and locked her icy eyes with him. "What was it that gotten you all shaken up?"

Max swallowed hard and looked away from a moment as memories, not from the crash, but before came rushing back in. "There..." he struggled to begin. "There was this man...and he, he had these black eyes. I thought I saw him."

That caught Dean's attention, catching a glimpse towards Alice, he saw her expression change severely. "What?" he spoke.

A look of horror stormed Max's eyes. "He opened the emergency exit," he spoke, color literally draining from his face. "But that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like two tons of pressure on that door."

Just imagining what Max might have seen gave Alice a pit in her stomach. He had a point. Opening the door at the speed the plane was going was, as he said, impossible.

"This man," Sam began. "Did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly? It would look something like a mirage?"

Max gave him a look "What are you, nuts? He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me."

* * *

After what felt like hours of digging, Alice and Sam figured out at that the man sitting in front of Max Jaffey was a married man of the name George Phelps. And after a little more digging, they drove off to the house of the now-widowed woman. They parked outside the house and got out. Dean and Sam got out of the Impala and Alice turned her bike off, pulling her helmet off her head.

"Man, I don't care how strong you are," Dean said with a puzzled look and gave a glance to Alice. "No way you can open up an emergency door during a flight."

Alice shared his confusion followed beside them. "Not with that pressure. That's damn well impossible, even if you're high as a kite off of PCP."

Dean gave a short laugh at her comment and was literately two seconds away from saying the same. "I was thinking the same thing." They shared a snickering smile before Sam snapped his fingers.

"Not if your human. Maybe this guy George was something else. Some kind of creature, maybe, in human form."

Dean glanced at Alice when yet again, they were thinking the same thing. "Does that look like a creature's lair to you?" he gestured to the perfect ordinary house.

* * *

Once they were inside, Alice took a look at the picture that was on the table of the now decided man. George did look the part of a normal suburbian man, besides his grieving widow in front of them.

Alice frowned. "You said...he was a dentist?" she asked, making sure she heard her right.

Mrs. Phelps nodded. "Yes. He was headed to a convention in Denver." Alice and the boys exchanged looks. "Did you know he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that..." She swallowed hard.

"How long were you married?" Sam asked.

"Thirteen years."

"In all that time, did you ever notice anything...strange about him, anything out of the ordinary."

She looked puzzled. "Well...he had acid reflux if that's what you mean."

* * *

After they left the house they were met with more questions, cause clearly, George wasn't the man they were supposed to be looking at.

"A middle-aged man with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified," Dean said while walking down the road beside Sam and Alice.

Alice nodded. "What we really need is to get inside that NTSB warehouse and check out the wreckage." She then suddenly stopped. The boy paused and turned around to face her, noticing her studying them hard with her blue eyes."But...you boys are gonna need to look the part."

* * *

The boys stepped out of a suit rental shop and were dressed in new black suits that gave them a completely professional appearance, not to mention it makes them look extra handsome despite Dean's clean displeasure. He let out an exasperated sigh and adjusted his necktie.

"Man," Dean looked down at himself. "I look like one of the Blues Brothers," he complained.

"No, you don't." Alice's voice came from behind them. "Look at you boys. You guys clean up nicely."

Dean spun around, ready to make his annoyance noted to Alice but he froze with his mouth open. She wore a very form-fitting black suit and tie. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and her makeup was very natural and a little dark. Dean almost forgot to breathe while staring at her in utter disbelief. Alice gave him a look and walked up to him. She gave him a slight pat on the cheek to snap him out of his awe daze while she proceeded to adjust his tie.

"You should really dress like that more often," Dean said.

Alice let out a small laugh. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"

"I would," Dean said instantly, not even trying to hide the clear attraction he had for her right now. "I really would, whole-heartedly." He stared her dead in the eyes.

Being this close, Alice could see all the details in his face and he really was attractive. Her hands moved to adjust the tie while her eyes burned into his for what felt like the longest time. Alice broke her hands away and reality finally returned to them. A world where people have died and they have to figure out why. That was what she had to set her mind on right now, despite...how hard it was to stay focus on anything with Dean around. It was easy with Sam since they both were very work-oriented when it came to a job, but with Dean, it felt hard.

* * *

Alice's plan worked flawlessly with a single flash of their fake badges. The Security guards unlocked the door for them and they quickly strolled inside the hanger. and had the doors unlocked for them. Once they were in the clear, they laid their eye upon the wreckage that barely looked like a plane anymore if not for the outline at their feet.

"Door handle, door handle..." Alice mumbled and walked ahead to look for the handle that George Phelps miraculously opened during the flight.

Dean pulled out a device and placed earbuds in.

Sam eyed it. "What is that?"

"It's an EMF meter. Reads electromagnetic frequencies."

"Yeah, I know what an EMF meter is, but why does that one look like a busted-up walkman?"

Dean grinned like the geek he was. "'Cause that's what I made it out of. It's homemade."

Sam eyed him. "Yeah, I can see that. Don't let Alice see that or she'll probably disown you."

Dean's grin disappeared and even looked a bit concern. He glanced ahead at Alice to make sure she wasn't looking but it seemed like she found the door handle.

Alice lifted her finger and beckoned them over to the emergency handle. "Boys, come check this out."

They walked over to her and saw her standing by the handle that was covered in this strange yellow rust. Dean brought out his EMF, hiding it from Alice's view, and scanned over it. It immediately started to spike red hot.

Alice ran her finger's across the dust and looked down at it, puzzled. "What is this stuff?"

"One way to find out." Sam scraped some of the yellow rust off the handle and into a bag to analyze later.

Alice lifted her head and heard the distant sound of the front door open up with multiples footsteps running in. She knew right away that their cover was blown. "Crap..." She tabbed her boys on the shoulders and yanked them hard. "We gotta go. Now."

They swiftly turned around and made for the back door without the watchful eyes of the security. Once outside, they tried to calmly walk out of the building but once the alarm went off they started to run for the gate. Dean threw his suit jacket over the barbed wire and they speedily climbed over in less than 5 seconds.

"Well, what do you know Alice," Dean grabbed his jacket. "These monkey suits do come in handy."

"Yeah, yeah. You can thank me later. Come on." She pushed their backs and they quickly got the hell out of there.

* * *

They fell back to Jerry's office, Alice took the strange yellow rust and looked at it under a microscope. It reflected on a replicated screen for the boys to see as well.

"Ah, crap..." Alice frowned when she recognized what it was. "It's freaking sulfur."

"You sure?" Sam asked.

Alice looked mildly offended. "You second-guessing me, Sammy? Not many things like this are left behind, and when it does it means..."

"Demonic possession?" Sam figured.

Alice looked grim but nodded.

Dean shrugged. "That would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch."

"If the guy was possessed, it's possible," Sam said.

"This gives way behind floating over a bed or barfing pea soup. I mean it's one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?"

"Alice. You ever heard of something like this before?" Sam looked at Alice for answers.

Alice sighed deeply. "Yeah, my mom and dad said to have handled one in my journal. Maybe they wrote down the instructions on how to stop a plane from taking a swan dive." She grumbled in frustration and stormed out of the room to grab her journal.

* * *

They were full in research mode at this time and totally riddled the motel walls with all kinds of lore dealing with demonic possession. Alice had isolated herself and buried her head in her journal, going over all her parent's entries about demonic possession.

"So every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right? I mean Christian, Native America, Hindu, you name it." Sam said while staring at his laptop.

"Yeah, but none of them describe anything like this," Dean said grimly.

"Well, that's not exactly true. You see according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made. One causes earthquakes, another causes disease."

"And this one causes plane crashes?" He sighed deeply and got up. "Alright, so what? We have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?"

"Yeah. You know, who knows how many planes it brought down before this one?" Sam sighed with frustration.

Deans scoffed and turned away. "I don't know man. This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death, and destruction for its own sake." He looked troubled. "This is big. And I wish Dad was here."

"Yeah. Me too."

Alice lifted her eyes from her journal but said nothing. She rolled her eyes and fell back down to the book when Dean's phone suddenly went off.

"Hello?" Dean picked it up.

"Dean, it's Jerry." His voice came through but it sounded grim.

"Oh, hey, Jerry."

"My pilot friend...Chuck Lambert is dead."

Dean was taken back by that. "Jerry, I'm sorry. What happened?"

Alice lifted her brow and finally pulled herself away from her book after hearing the alarm in Dean's voice.

"He and his buddy went up in a small twin about an hour ago, The plane went down," Jerry told.

"Where'd this happen?"

"About sixty miles west of here, near Nazareth."

"I'll try to ignore the irony in that."

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We'll catch up with you soon." He hangs up and Alice spoke up.

"Another crash?" She asked.

Dean nodded. "Yeah. Alice, why don't you head to the crash site and see if you can find anything. We'll meet you back at Jerry's place."

Alice nodded and closed her Journal to get up. "Sure. Where is it?" She grabbed her helmet and keys.

"Nazareth."

Alice paused and eyed him. "The hell's with that Irony?" She shook that strange coincident off and headed for the door. "See you boys in two hours."

* * *

Alice stared down at into the microscope and her face turned sour. "Dammit." she sighed and pulled away.

"Sulfur?" Dean asked.

Alice nodded. "Yeah. So that makes two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. Sounds like the demon was after him.

"If that was the case, that would be the good news," Sam said and shared a concerned look with Alice.

"What's the bad news?" Dean said.

Alice sat on top of the desk. "Chuck's plane went down exactly forty minutes into the flight and so did flight 2485."

Dean finally understood the tension that was forming between Alice and Sam. "Biblical Numerology."

"Bingo." Alice snapped her fingers. "But that ain't all we've noticed."

"I went back, and there has been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in," Sam said.

"Any survivors?"

"No. Or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason. On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the EVP said?"

"No survivors.'" Dean paused for a moment before suddenly realizing. "It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job."

* * *

Dean and Alice broke the speed limit while driving down the long stretch of highway. Darkness was enclosing in on them fast and the clock ticked away with every second they couldn't begin to spare. Sam already did his end and made sure that Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway were not flying anytime soon. The only one left was the flight attendant, Amanda Walker.

"Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight pm. It's her first night back on the job."

"That sounds like just our luck," Dean said.

"Dean, this is a five-hour drive, even with you behind the wheel and Alice on her bike." Sam was grim with every second that passed. They were cutting it close. Way to close.

"Call Amanda's cellphone again, see if we can't head her off at the pass."

"I already left her three voice messages. She mustn't turn her cellphone off. God, we're never going to make it."

"We'll make it." Dean pushed down the gas and sped up to catch Alice who was almost nothing but a bright burn in the distance.

* * *

They shoved by everyone while running inside the airport. They looked up at the departure board that was station above their heads that listed all the flights and when they were going to leave. It took about five seconds before finding the flight Amanda was going to be on.

"Right there." Sam pointed up. "They're boarding in thirty minutes."

Alice's face contorted with worry. "Thirty minutes? Are you serious?"

Dean tried to consul her. "Don't worry we still have some cards to play. We need to find a phone." His eyes scanned around the area and narrowed in on one mounted to the wall, a courtesy phone. He picked up. "Hi. Gate thirteen... I'm trying to contact Amanda Walker. She's a flight attendant on flight, uh..." He looked to Alice and she quickly whispered the flight number.

"4-2-4." She said.

"Flight 4-2-4." Dean waited around for a moment as time slowly moved on by. "Come on." He muttered impatiently.

Her voice finally broke through. "This is Amanda Walker."

"Miss Walker. Hi, this is Dr. James Hetfield from St Francis Memorial Hospital. We have Karen Walker here." He made up a lie on the spot.

"Karen?"

"Nothing serious, just a minor car accident, but she was injured, so-"

"Wait, that's impossible. I just got off the phone with her."

That caused Dean to freeze and Alice noticed the rising panic in his eyes. "You what?" Dean repeated.

"Five minutes ago. She's at her house, cramming for a final. Who is this?"

"Uh, well..." The color drained from his face. "There must be a mistake."

"And how would you even know I was here?"

Sam and Alice move around Dean to hear what was going on.

"Is this one of Vince's friends?" she suddenly said.

Dean gave a sly smile to play off his mess up. "Guilty is charged."

"Wow. This is unbelievable."

"He's really sorry.

"Well, you tell him to mind his own business and stay out of my life, okay?"

"Well, but...he really needs to see you tonight, so-"

"No, I'm sorry. It's too late."

"Don't be like that. Come on. The guy's a mess. Really. It's pathetic."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Look, I've got to go. Um...tell him to call me when I land."

"No, no. Wait, Amanda. Amanda!" The line was disconnected. Dean slammed the phone back on the wall. "Dammit! So close."

Alice walked back over to the departure board to see how much time they had left. They had about 20 minutes left to spare before the flight took off. If they leave now then they might just make it. They "Hey," she called out to them. "We're getting on that flight."

Dean's eyes go wide and his voice showed to crack. "Whoa, whoa, now just hold on a minute, sweetheart."

Alice looked at him like he was insane. "Wait a minute? Are you serious? Dean, that plane's gonna go down."

"I know."

"So why are you hesitating? Look. We're getting on that plane. We're gonna find that demon and exorcise it. Sam will go and get the tickets while you and I will go back out to the trunk and bring anything that will go through security. We'll meet back here in five minutes." She saw the color evaporate from his face while he squirmed around. Alice slowly began to cock a brow at his odd behavior. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"No, not really." He admitted weakly.

"What? What's wrong?" Sam said.

"Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh..."

"Flying?" Sam eyed his brother who he knew to be fearless, so this took him by surprise and Alice just looked baffled by this new discovery.

"It never really been an issue until now." Dean's voice cracked and he generally looked nervous.

Alice's mouth dropped open. "You serious? Are you screwing with me?"

"Do I look like I'm joking, Alice?" He explained in a hushed tone. "Why do you think I drive everywhere."

Now it was starting to make sense. Alice rolled her eyes all the way to the back of her head. "Fine. If you're to chicken shit to go on that flight then Sam and I can do it instead."

Dean looked taken back cause he honestly didn't want either Alice or his own brother to go on that plane. "What are you, nuts? You said it yourself, the plane's gonna crash."

"Dean," Sam spoke up firmly. "Alice and I can do this together or you come with us. I'm not seeing a third option."

Dean frowned and stomped around a bit but reluctantly agreed. "Come on! Really? Man..."

* * *

After what seemed like the most stressful 20 minutes of their life, they miraculously made it abord the flight with 5 minutes to spare and finally took their seats. Dean, while still frightened and pale, took the aisle seat, Alice beside him, and Sam by the window.

Sam picked up on Dean humming something to himself. "You're humming Metallica?"

"Calms me down," Dean whispered quickly and continued to hum.

Sam shook his head. "Look, man, I get you're nervous, all right? But you got to stay focused."

"Okay."

"I mean, we got thirty-two minutes and counting to track this thing down, or whoever it's possessing, anyway, and perform a full-on exorcism."

"Yeah, on a crowded plane. That's gonna be easy." He spat.

"Just take it one step at a time, alright?" Sam tried to speak calmly to his brother. "Now, who is it possessing?"

"It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress." Dean said.

"Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash. If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up."

Alice frowned and looked across the long row of seats to see the back of the plane. She spotted a flight attendant back there. "Think that's her over there," she gestured with her head and sat back down.

Dean took a glance. "All right, I'll go talk to her, and, uh, I'll get a read on her mental state."

"What if she's already possessed?" Sam said.

"There's a way to test that." Dean reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of holy water in the shape of the Virgin Mary. "I brought this."

"No." Sam reached across Alice and snatched the bottle from Dean's hand, tucking it inside his hoodie. "I think we can go more subtle. If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the name of God."

"Oh. Nice." Dean got up to leave when Sam suddenly called him back.

"Hey."

"What?"

"Say it in Latin."

"I know." He turned to leave again.

"Okay. Hey!" Sam called him back yet again.

"What!?" Dean snapped back.

"Uh, in Latin, It's 'Christo'.

"Dude, I know! I'm not an idio-"

"Would you just go back there already so we all won't die!" Alice snapped at both of them.

Dean lifted his hands and slowly began his shuffle through the row of seats that headed to the back. The plane then suddenly hit a bit of turbulence and jolted. Dean stopped, rooted to the floorboard. He slapped his hands against the seat and carried on.

Alice slowly cranked her head over to Sam and gave him a dumbfounded look at what she had just witnessed. Never did she thought would she see such a vulnerable side of him.

Sam immediately placed his hands up to defend himself. "I swear I never knew he was afraid of flying."

"So you guys really just drove around the whole freaking country?"

Sam paused for a moment and slowly nodded. "Yeah, now that you mention it."

Alice looked away and rolled her eyes. There were a few times in the past that she had the fly to get to the place she needs to be, but this was just silly.

Dean came back a few minutes later, still as pale as ever. "All right, well, she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet," Dean muttered and sat back down.

"You said 'Christo'?" Sam asked and he nodded.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"There's no demon in her. There's no demon getting in her." He confirmed rather confidently. Suddenly the plane gave a hard jolt. "Come on! That can't be normal!"

"Hey, hey, it's just a little turbulence." Sam tried to assure him.

"Sam, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treating me like I'm friggin' four." he hissed.

"You need to calm down."

"Well, I'm sorry I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it's not helping."

Alice finally had enough and moved up in her seat, turning her body to face him. "Okay. You really need to calm the hell down. You're wide open for demonic possession and I don't really feel like kicking the bastard out of you. So, if you wanna hold my freaking hand then fine, as long as you calm down." she seethed at him with venom in her voice. Dean stared wide-eyed at her before actually taking her hand into his. "Oh, God. You actually took my hand."

"Hey, sweetheart. You offer it, I'm taking it." he justified his reasons with a sly grin, despite how pale he was and how bad his hand was shaking.

Alice rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She patted him on the shoulder. "Okay. Now, I found an exorcism in my journal that I think gonna work." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper to hand to Sam. "The Rituale Romanum. It's in two parts. The first one expels the Demon from the host. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful."

Dean looked at her like she was crazy. "More powerful?"

"Yup. And don't give me that look. It does become powerful enough to wreak havoc on its own, but...the second part sends it back to hell." She looked over to Sam. "You think you can do it?"

Sam scanned through the writing. "Yeah. Yeah." He sighed and faced her. "We just to find the bastard first."

Alice looked grim. "Yeah..."

* * *

Dean slowly walked up and down the aisles, scanning it with his EMF meter and also getting odd looked from the passengers. No readings at all. The who plane was radio silent. He suddenly felt a hand grab his shoulder that caused him to jump. It was only Alice and Sam. "Don't do that."

"Anything?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. "No, nothing. How much time we got?"

Alice frowned. "Fifteen minutes."

"Maybe we missed something." Sam though but Alice only shrugged her shoulders.

"Hell, maybe. It's probably not even on the plane."

Sam cocked a brow. "You believe that?" he asked.

Alice may be good at her job but even she had times where she messed up. "I don't know. What do you boy-" She stopped herself when the EMF meter started to spike. "What the..."

They looked up and saw the copilot coming out of the bathroom and heading into the cockpit.

"Christo," Alice called out and the copilot flinched. He slowly turned his head over and looked at them, eyes a completely solid black. He said nothing and staggered into the cockpit. Alice narrowed her eyes. "Found you."

* * *

Amanda was in denial and only looked at them like they were crazy, having the whole situation explained to her in a whole. It was honestly just too much to comprehend for her, but Alice and the boys had no time either to be gentle. The plane had only twelve minutes left until it crashes.

Sam began to try and explain it once more to her. "Look, there was something wrong with 2485. Now maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight, too."

Amanda shook her head as these memories began to resurface. "On...on 2485, there was this man. He...had these eyes."

Alice snapped her fingers. "That's what we're talking about. We hate to drag you into this but things are going to get dangerous."

"I don't understand, what are you asking me to do?"Amanda looked bewildered.

"The copilot, we need you to bring him back here."

"Why? What does he have to do with anything?"

"We don't have time to explain. We just need to talk to him." Alice insisted.

"Do you know that I could lose my job if you-" Amanda began but Dean cut her off.

"Okay, well you're gonna lose a lot more if you don't help us out," he said urgently.

Amanda was hesitant at first before she sheepishly nodded in agreement. "Okay." She left the back room and headed towards the cockpit.

Alice narrowed her eyes. "Get ready." She took a step back and reached into her bag to pull out some duck tape while Sam got the exorcism ready with the holy water.

They waited in silence for Amando to being back to copilot but the moment they saw him, Dean slugged him across the face as soon as he entered the back. Alice quickly duck-taped his mouth close while Dean pinned him to the ground. Sam began to splash holy water onto copilot and his skin started to burn with steam coming off it.

"Wait. What are you doing?" Amanda was horror-struck. "You said you were just gonna talk to him."

"We are gonna talk to him," Dean said while wresting to keep the demon down.

"Amanda," Alice spoke up and guided her away. "We need you to stay calm. Everything's gonna be fine, we just need you to stay outside the curtains and make sure no one gets in." Amanda only looked stunned. "Hey! Can you do that?" She grabbed her shoulders and forced her gaze. "Can you?"

"Okay. Okay." Amanda complied and left.

"Hurry up, Sam. I don't know how much longer I can hold him." Dean struggled against the demon who tried to break free from his grip.

Sam began to read from the slip of paper. "Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino-"

The demon broke free from his hold and struck both the boys. Alice moved in fast and jumped on its back, locking her arms around his neck and held him down. He rolled on to his back with Alice beneath him, struggling and gasping to get this crazy woman off.

"Sam! Hurry up." Alice hissed while holding him down.

Sam quickly recovered more so from his shock that Alice is choke-holding a demon and winning. He began to read once again and after it was done, help her and Dean in holding the demon down. Black smoke erupted from its mouth and hovered in the air like a cloud before disappearing into the vent.

Sam looked around. "Where'd it go?"

Dean was pale. "It's in the plane. Hurry up. We gotta finish it."

Suddenly the plane dipped down harshly and caused Dean and Alice to crash into each other. Sam lost the paper and it flew out into the aisles. The engines blazed in their ears and they felt their heart up in their throats. Alice was splayed up in the corner with Dean and they screamed through the madness. Sam crawled his way through the panicked people and down the aisles and finally grabbed the paper like it was a lifeline. He unfolded it as the plane rocked back and forth with the lights going in and out. He screamed out the rest of the exorcism when an electronic charge ran through the whole plane and balanced it out. The lights stopped flickering and the plane road smoothly.

Alice took a breath and looked down, frowning. "Dean...you still alive on me?"

Dean's face was white and his eyes were wide. He had one arm holding himself up and the other latched around Alice's waist. "Yeah...just give me a moment." He dropped his head into her shoulder.

* * *

Paramedic, FBI, FAA all came to the airport and were getting the story about what happened on the flight. The copilot, though sore around the neck was just fine even though he had no memories of ever getting on the plane. Amanda was being questioned too but said nothing about what really happened upon the flight. She looked towards Alice and the boys and mouth the words 'Thank you.'

Alice gave a small wave before they headed out. "Friggin finally. Let's just get out of here." She can still feel her heart pounding in her chest.

"You don't even have to tell me." Dean joked and got a smile from Alice. "Come here." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and they all walked out of the airport.

* * *

"Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do." Jerry thanked them profusely. "A lot of people could have been killed." He shook each of their hands. Alice was already outside by her bike, waiting. "Your dad's gonna be really proud."

"We'll see you around, Jerry," Sam said with a smile.

Dean turned to head off where Alice was waiting outside when he stopped. "You know, Jerry. I was meaning to ask you, how did you get my cellphone number, anyway? I've only had it for like six months." This baffled him.

"Your dad gave it to me," Jerry stated, which puzzled the boys since they haven't heard from their father in a very long time now.

"What?" Sam said.

"I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number. His voice message said to give you a call." Jerry said before leaving. "Thanks again, guys."

* * *

Alice and Sam looked over Dean's shoulder as he dialed their father's number into his phone.

"This doesn't make any sense, man." Sam was left speechless. "I've called Dad's number like fifty times. It's been out of service."

Alice crossed her arms. "It must have come back online during the last time you called."

Dean held his phone up for both him, Sam, and Alice to here and like usual, it went straight to voice message. "This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help." End.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**My God! I am so, so sorry for not posting this story at all last week. For some damn reason, I found this episode really dang texting to write for, and it was especially hard since I had no motivation at all to do it. I can already tell that this story is gonna be a hard one to post for, but don't worry, I will never abandon a story if people read it, review it, favorite and follow it!**

**I'll see you when next time I post!**


	5. Bloody Mary

**BLOODY MARY**

Toledo, Ohio

Recently, Alice found a case in the newspaper and gave it to Sam and Dean for the three of them to check out. Steven Shoemaker was the name of the victim that suddenly came up dead in a strange way. Perfect health, nothing wrong with the dude so it was a mystery to everyone. They walked into the local hospital and headed straight for the morgue to check out Shoemaker's body.

It looked like only the technician was in. He looked up. "Hey." He said, greeting the boys but gave an extra long/creepy stare at Alice. She stiffened under his intense gaze and looked down at her clothes. She was still kinda dressed in her riding gear so she had on leather pants, a jacket that opened up to a simple low cut gray top. Nothing short of a biker punk in heels really. She even noticed the awkward look Dean was giving this guy who was practically burning a hole through her. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah. We're the, uh...med students." Dean came up with a lie on the spot so they could take a look at the body.

The technician furrowed his brows. "Sorry?"

"Oh, Doctor..." He stumbled on the name a bit. "Figlavitch didn't tell you? We talked to him on the phone. He, uh, we're from Ohio State. He was supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse. It's for our paper."

"Well, I'm sorry, he's at lunch." The technician said, not budging one bit.

"Oh well, he said, uh... Oh, well, you know, it doesn't matter, You don't mind showing us the body, do you?"

"Sorry, I can't. Doc will be back in an hour, you can wait for him if you want."

"An hour? Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then." He gave a glance to Alice to follow up.

"Unfortunately." She added half-heartedly.

"Uh, look, man, this paper's like half our grade, so if you don't mind helping us out-"

"Oh, look, man..." The technician cut in. "No."

Dean gave a small laughed and turned around, mumbling under his breath. "I'm gonna hit him in his face I swear."

Alice sighed and shoved Dean behind his brother so he wouldn't open his mouth again and get them kicked out. She reached for the pen the technician was holding and grabbed a scrap of paper and began to write something down on it.

The technician looked at her and was confused. "What are you doing?"

"Writing my number." She said and handed it to him.

Dean's eyes went so wide, he wished that his hearing was failing him. He snapped his head over, about giving him whiplash and gave Alice a look like she was crazy and on fire. Hell, he'll admit that he even felt a bit jealous that she would give her phone number away so easily.

The technician looked at Alice's number and back to her. He scoffed a bit and reached for his phone to prove that it was real. He dialed her number and waited when a ringer started to go off. Alice smirked and held her ringing phone up to show him that she didn't fool him.

"Shoemaker corpse, please." She asked in a sickly sweet voice.

The technician smirked at her and put the paper away in his pocket. "Follow me." He got up to show them.

Dean grabbed Alice by her shoulder and stopped her while Sam followed the technician in. "You serious? Did you seriously just give your number out to him?" His face was a bit red.

Alice scoffed a bit and patted him on the cheek. "Relax. My phone plan is going to be up at the end of the week anyway." She ruffled his hair and followed after them.

Dean rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath before hurrying after them.

* * *

"Now...the daughter said that she found him on the ground with his eyes bleeding." Alice began and stood in front of the covered corpse while the technician got ready to show them.

"More than that. They practically liquefied." He pulled back the cover and revealed the pale corpse of Steven Shoemaker. His eyes were totally gone, just the empty sockets.

Alice squinted her eyes and mouthed the word "Wow".

"Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?" Dean asked.

"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone." The technician answered.

"What's the official cause of death?" Sam asked.

"Ah, Doc's not sure. He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure."

"What do you mean?"

"Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."

Alice pointed down at the body. More accurately, the eyes. "Any idea how something like this could happen?"

"Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."

"Yeah?" Dean lifted his brow. "You ever see exploding eyeballs?"

The technician shook his head. "That's a first for me, but hey, I'm not the doctor."

Alice was convinced at this point that something weird did go on with Shoemaker since she never saw anything like this before it and be natural. "All right... Ah, can we take a look at the police report?" She asked and the technician nodded. Of course, he was more than willing to help the hot biker chick, Dean noticed.

* * *

They walked out of the hospital after getting a look at the body and after Alice batted her eyelashes, they got the police report too.

"Might not be one of ours" Sam thought but Dean disagreed.

He shook his head. "How many times in Dad's or even Alice's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?"

Alice chuckled lowly and patted him hard on the back. "Now you're starting to get it." She laughed. "Okay. I'd say the first course of action is to talk to the daughter."

* * *

When they got to the Shoemaker house, it was jammed full of people clad in black silently weeping and chatting amongst each other that spread across the whole area. Alice and the boys stuck out like a sore thumb when they walked in, with Alice wearing her riding gear with heels and the boys dressed in this laid-back grunge style.

"Feel like we're underdressed," Dean mumbled and noticed all the odd looks they were given.

"Let's just get this over with quickly," Alice grumbled and grits through her teeth. "I hate doing investigations during a funeral. It's always so damn awkward."

They shuffled their way through the mess of people and head out to the backyard where the crowd was more scarce. They were pointed to where Donna and Lily Shoemaker were who stood among two other friends.

Dean strolled up to the daughter. "You must be Donna, right?" He asked with Sam and Alice walking up behind him.

Donna looked up with her semi-wet eyes that clearly shown that she was crying. "Yeah."

Sam cut in with his usual compassionate approach. "Hi, uh—we're really sorry."

Donna nodded her head slowly. "Thank you."

"I'm Sam, this is Dean and Alice. We worked with your dad."

Donna gave her friend, Charlie a look before looking back at the boys, a bit confused. "You did?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I mean, a stroke.

Charlie spoke up quite firmly to them. "I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now."

"It's okay. It's okay." Donna said but Alice could clearly see the stain of redness in her eyes when she said that. Man, she really hated digging up already fresh wounds. It truly made her feel like crap.

"Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?" Dean asked, trying to get more information out of the poor girl while also trying to be gentle.

"No" Donna shook her head.

Suddenly Lilly turned around and spoke up in a distressed voice as her face turned a deadly pale shade. "That's because it wasn't a stroke." She said which caused Alice to lift a brow in confusion.

"Lily, don't say that." Donna tried to say.

"What?" Alice spoke up for the first time. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry, she's just upset," Donna said.

"No, it happened because of me." Lily's worried and chilling voice made Alice's heart sped up a little.

Alice leaned down and rested her hand on the arm of the chair Lily was sitting in. "Why do you think it was your fault?" She wished her voice was as compassionate as Sam's was but the way this child was acting just didn't seem right. Like there was more to the story then a freak medical accident.

Lily looked up at Alice and felt a little small under her strong blue gaze but felt compelled to speak. "Right before he died, I said it."

"You said it? What did you say?"

Lily swallowed hard. "Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror. She took his eyes, that's what she does."

Alice felt her whole body grow cold and she slowly pulled away and narrowed her eyes. She gave Dean a quick tap on the shoulder and made a signal with her head to the bathroom upstairs where Steven Shoemaker died. She gave a small but quick apology to the family and head back inside the house for some bull excuse.

Dean nodded and saw Alice's figure disappear inside the crowd and turned back to Lily and Donna. "I'm sure that's not why you're dad died. There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary."

* * *

Alice crept upstairs after getting under the radar of the family members and the mourners to check out the bathroom that Steven Shoemaker died, seemingly from the Bloody Mary legend. She slowly opened the door to the small bathroom and her eyes zoned in on the ground in front of the mirror. The stains of blood were still very visible. Alice narrowed her eyes and took one last look back to make sure no one was going to come up before she began to search through the shelves and drawers.

Her parents, Charlotte and Jackson Cromwell, never once mentioned anything in her journal about true facts about the legend. The only thing she knows of it is that whenever someone said Bloody Mary in the mirror three times then she would come out and scratch their eyes out. And as far as everyone knows, nobody died from it. But what really confused her was that fact that the kids were playing it but Shoemaker got killed instead.

Alice turned her head and jumped a bit when she saw her own reflection in the mirror. She rolled her eyes and opened the medicine cabinet behind it. "The place where the legend began..." She mumbled and looked at all the labels before the sound of creaking footsteps caught her attention. Alice shut the mirror and swiftly walked out into the hall and ran into Charlie who stared at her in confusion.

"What are you doing up here?" Charlie demanded.

"Had to use the bathroom?"

Charlie didn't believe Alice's lie at all and glared at her. "Who are you?"

Alice crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. "My guys worked with Donna's dad."

"He was a day trader. Or something. He worked by himself."

Alice felt her stomach drop and cursed Dean for coming up with a lie like that. "Look, listen."

"And all those weird questions, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming." Charlie threatened her but Alice's face remained unfazed.

Alice cocked a brow. She pushed herself off the frame and took a step towards Charlie who instinctively took one step back, this small fraction of fright started to grow the longer she stood before Alice. "Firstly, if you're going to scream then don't announce it. Secondly, don't threaten me. I don't play nice to being threatened."

Charlie felt her heart began to swell and shake. Her body turned cold and she forgot to breathe while staring into this woman's cold blue eyes that burned through every defense she had built up. Frozen, she stood absolutely petrified before her.

Alice saw the fear spilling into Charlie's eyes and sighed, backing away to give her room to breathe. "I'm not here to hurt you or anyone else from the family." She said.

"Who are you, cops?" Charlie asked, her voice still shaking a bit.

"No." Alice shook her head. "But I specialize in strange deaths. That's why my boys and I are here."

Charlie was confused. "Why? It was a stroke."

"A stroke doesn't cause someone's eyes to melt. I don't know what's going on here yet." Alice patted around through her jacket pockets and pulled out a notepad and pen. "Anyway, here. This ain't my number, but it's Sam's, the guy you met downstairs. If you or your friends notice anything strange, anything at all, then don't hesitate to call." Alice handed Charlie the paper and walked passed her back downstairs.

* * *

"Are you sure it was a good idea to give Sam's number away?" Dean asked Alice who walked between him and Sam as they ventured into the library, ready to get waist deep into Bloody Mary lore.

Alice rolled her eyes. "I kinda startled her a bit so I felt like I had no choice." She said.

Dean could see that happening. From the leather jacket, heels, and cold blue eyes, Alice does come off a bit intimidating. Though he finds it kinda hot. "You gotta watch what you say around kids, Alice." he sighed playfully but Alice only glared at him.

"Shut up." She lightly knocked him upside the head, not enough to hurt but that only caused Dean to grin widely at her. "Anyways. If Bloody Mary is haunting this town then that means some local girl died nasty here."

"Yeah but legends this widespread is hard," Sam said. "I mean, there's like 50 versions of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch, another say's she's a mutilated bride, there's a lot more. "

They walked into the library just when it started to get dark.

"All right, so what are we supposed to be looking for?" Dean asked.

"Every version's got a few things in common. It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we gotta search the local newspapers—public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."

Dean frowned. "That sounds annoying."

"No, it won't be so bad, as long as we..." They were forced to stop and stare at the dead screens of the computers with a sign over it saying 'Out of Order'. Sam scoffed. "I take it back. This will be very annoying."

* * *

They head back to the motel after gathering all the lore they could. Dean sat across from Alice and they both looked up when they saw Sam jolt awake, a little pale and breathed roughly from the sudden slumber.

Sam groaned. "Why'd you let me fall asleep?"

"Cause I'm an awesome brother," Dean said. "So what did you dream about?"

"Lollipops and candy canes."

"Yeah, sure."

Sam sat up a bit and moved his body over to face them, finally seeing the state Alice was in with three cups of coffee in front of her. "Did you find anything?"

Dean shook his head and frowned. "Oh besides a whole new level of frustration and Alice's new coffee addiction. No. We've looked through everything. A few local women, a Laura, and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror."

"Don't forget a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave." Alice pointed out and grabbed her coffee cup.

"Can't forget him, but uh, no Mary."

Sam sighed and flopped back against his bed. "Maybe we just haven't found it yet."

"Alice was also doing some side work. She was looking in on any strange deaths in the area, you know...eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing." Dean said and looked over at Alice for answers.

Alice shook her head and looked grim. "I didn't find anything. Sorry boys. I don't know about this one. Maybe it ain't Mary we're supposed to be looking for."

Sam frowned and looked down at his phone when he heard it go off. He pulled it to his ear and answers it. "Hello?" His face then morphed into concern.

* * *

They were forced to make a quick trip to the park where Charlie was sat on the bench, crying and explaining the death of her sudden friend, Jill.

"And they found her on the bathroom floor. And her—her eyes. They were gone." Charlie cried with her cracking voice that throbbed.

"I'm sorry." Sam apologized.

"And she said it," Charlie said and Alice narrowed her eyes, giving the boys a look. "I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?"

Dean shook his head. "No, you're not insane."

"Oh God, that makes me feel so much worse." She whimpered.

"Listen," Alice spoke up. "We think somethings happening here but we can't explain it yet. Now, we can stop it but we will need your help."

* * *

Alice, Dean, and Sam moved quickly and were let in through Jill's room via window after Charlie made an excuse to the mother. Alice stood on the outside and tossed two bags at Dean before hopping inside and quietly closing the window.

"What did you tell Jill's mom?" Sam asked and searched through the duffel bag.

"Just that I need some time alone with Jill's pictures and things." She said grimly. "I hate lying to her."

"Trust us, this is for the greater good. Alice hit the lights." Dean said.

"Yeah, yeah." Alice walked over and flicked the switch, enclosing the room in darkness.

"What are you guys looking for?" Charlie asked and stood next to Alice.

"We'll let you know as soon as we find it." She said and crossed her arms. She stood by the door and made sure that Jill's mom wouldn't come up. She grabbed her own bag and pulled out a video camera. She turned it on and flipped on the night vision. "Sam." She called out and handed it to him.

"Perfect." Sam held the camera up and pointed it at Dean to make sure it was working.

Dean smirked into the camera. "Do I look like Paris Hilton?"

Sam rolled his eyes and turned it away and began to scan the room. "So I don't get it...the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How does she choose them?"

"There is always a connection in some shape or form. Mary might now something we don't. We just have to find it." Alice said.

Dean rolled his eyes. "That's the annoying part. I want to know why Jill said it in the first place."

"It's just a joke." Charlie shrugged sheepishly.

"Yeah well somebody's gonna say it again, it's just a matter of time."

Sam walked into the bathroom where Jill's body was found and began to film over the mirror till something caught his attention. He saw something leaking out from behind the mirror. "Alice." He called back to her.

She looked up towards the bathroom. "Yeah?"

"You got a black light in your bag right?"

Alice's eyes widen. She got into her bag and started to fumble through it in search of her light. "You boys get that mirror off the wall." She pulled out a light and flicked it on and waited till they brought the mirror onto Jill's bed. She peeled off the brown paper and shined her blacklight onto the back. It lit up like a Christmas tree with a name bled into the back. "Gary Bryman?"

* * *

Sam, Dean, and Charlie waited by a park bench after Alice went out to get information about the name they found on the back of Jill's mirror. Alice came back an hour later with a piece of paper in her hand. "Listen up, children. Gary Bryman was an 8 year old boy. Two years ago he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry. Nobody got the plates or seen the driver." she explained.

Charlie's face morphed into horror and she started to feel sick to her stomach. "Oh my God."

"What?" Sam asked.

"Jill drove that same car."

Alice frowned and folded up the piece of paper. "Okay...so. I'd say we gotta go back and confirm something. Sam, Dean why don't you and Charlie go to Donna's house and see on the back of that Shoemaker mirror. I gotta head back to the motel."

* * *

Alice was already back at the motel and left the Shoemaker mirror to Dean and them while she did a nationwide search on any kind of Mary that died in front of a mirror. She was honestly getting tired of the search and miss now and was desperate to find the real deal.

Her phone lit up and began to buzz on the table until she picked it up. "Yeah?" She answered in a low tone that was deprived of sleep.

"Hey, Alice. So we just got back from Donna's house and yeah...a name was on the back of the mirror." Dean said.

"Who's?"

"Linda Shoemaker. It was Donna's mom, but she said that she died from a drug overdose."

Alice rolled her eyes and ran her hand through her hair, leaning back far in her chair. "That didn't seem to be the case with Mary. This whole thing's starting to annoy me so I'm doing a nationwide search now. Any kind of Mary that died in front of a mirror, I'll now." She watched as her laptop did all the work. "So what do we got? Both victims were involved in a murder? Is that the pattern we're looking for?"

Sam's voice broke through. "Right. I mean. There's a lot of folklore about mirror's and that they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a reflection of your true soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them."

"Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, them Mary sees it, and punishes you for it." Dean followed up.

"If you're the one who summons her or not," Alice mumbled and looked at her computer when she finally got a hit. "Ah-ha." She said, a bit too giddy for staring at a picture of a dead woman who laid in a puddle of her own blood, but behold, in front of a mirror. "Got a hit, Boys. Mary Worthington—an unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana."

* * *

Alice met up halfway with the boys and headed off to Indiana to check out the Mary Worthington case that led them to an old retired detective.

"I was on the job 35 years-detective for most of that." His voice was tried and defeated when he mentioned Mary's case. Alice could see a chill in his eyes when speaking of it. "Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder—that one still gets me."

They followed him around his apartment.

"What exactly happened?" Dean asked.

The detective eyed them. "You guys said you were reporters?"

Sam nodded. "We know Mary was 19, lived by herself. We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cut out her eyes with a knife."

"That's right."

"See sir, when we asked you what happened, we wanted to know what you think happened."

The detective had a gloomy look upon his old face before he went in the back of his apartment and pulled a box of files out of a cabinet. "Technically I'm not supposed to have a copy of this." He opened a file with the same picture of the one Alice found. Mary, who laid dead in front of a mirror with three letters written in blood on the reflection. T-R-E. "Now see that T-R-E?"

"Yeah." Alice took the picture and got a good look at it. "You have any idea who that may be?"

"Not for sure. But there was a local man, Surgeon-Trevor Sampson." He proceeded to pull out another picture of the man. "And I think he cut her up good?"

Alice lifted a brow. "Why would you say that?"

"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, 'T'. Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell T's wife about their affair."

"Yeah, but how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?" Dean asked.

"It's hard to say, but the way her eyes were cut out...it was almost professional." He said ominously, sending shivers down his skin with his own words.

The corner of Alice's lips twitched. "But you could never prove it."

"No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous."

"Is he still alive?"

The old man shook his head. "Nope." He sat down and let out a deep sigh. "If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secrets. But she never could."

"Where's she buried?" Sam asked, hoping they could salt and burn the body. A quick and easy solution.

"She wasn't. She was cremated."

Alice's face twisted just as much as her stomach was.

"What about that mirror?" Dean pointed to the mirror she died in front of. "It's not in some evidence lockup somewhere is it?"

"Ah, no." He said. "It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."

"You have the name by any chance?"

* * *

Alice went on ahead and went back to the motel to do some digging on where the mirror was and already told the boys, who were driving back, that the family already sold the mirror to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo.

Dean furrowed his brows. "Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?"

"Yeah, there is. When someone would die in a house people would cover the mirrors so the ghost wouldn't get trapped." Sam explained.

"So Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit."

"Yeah, but how could she move through like a hundred different mirrors."

"I don't know, but if it the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it," Dean stated his solution but Sam didn't look all that convinced.

"Yeah, I don't know, maybe." He jumped a bit when he felt his phone began to ring in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked down at it. "It's Alice."

Dean eyed him. "What? Did she forget to tell us something?"

Sam held the phone to his ears. "Alice?" He answered.

* * *

Alice sighed deeply and held her phone between her cheek and shoulder. "Hey, Sam." She said in a monotone voice while shaking out a large red blanket before throwing it over a terrified Charlie who sat on her bed, face hidden in her hands and slightly sobbing. Alice patted her head. "Things have just gotten complicated."

* * *

Alice sat on the bed while Charlie clanged to the sleeve of her leather jacket, still hiding under the blanket. Sam and Dean worked swiftly and took down and covered all things in their motel room that could carry a reflection.

"We're good?" Alice asked them and they both nodded towards her. "Okay, Charlie. You can take the blanket off now." She saw Charlie hesitate. "Look. You're fine. You can open your eyes now. Nothing is going to hurt you." She tried her best to be gentle and it seemed to work. Charlie slowly lifted the blanket off her head. Her eyes were red and glassy. Alice moved to stand in front of Charlie while she still clung to her sleeve. "Now listen. You're going to stay here on this bed, and you're not going to look at any glass, or anything else that has a reflection, okay? As long as you do as I say, she can't get you."

Charlie spoke up through a weak whimper with quivering lips. "But I can't keep that up forever." Alice saw the hand holding her jacket start to tremble. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

Alice felt her stomach twist when someone so young asks such an awful question. She kneeled before her and stared her right in the eyes. "No. Not for a long time."

Dean sat down on the bed beside her. "All right Charlie. We need to know what happened?"

Charlie was quiet at first "We were in the bathroom. Donna said it."

"That's not what we're talking about. Something happened, didn't it? In your life...a secret...where someone got hurt. Can you tell us about it."

Charlie felt like her heart was going to stop dead in her chest. "I had this boyfriend. I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know?" She gave a weak smile. "And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said 'Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself.' And you know what I said? I said 'Go ahead.' And I left." Her eyes made of glass started to water again. "How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just...I didn't believe him, you know? I should have." She pulled the blanket back over her face and cried.

Alice took in a deep breath and patted Charlie's head, her eyes slowly narrowing.

* * *

The sun already set and the darkness rolled in as they head to the antique store as quick as possible with the rain pouring on them. Alice waved them off and took off ahead of them to get there first and scope the place out.

"You know, I was thinking." Sam began. "It may not be enough to just smash the mirror."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean she moves around from mirror to mirror so who's to say that she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."

"Well, how do you know that it's going to work?"

"I don't, not for sure."

"Well, who's gonna summon her?"

"I will. She'll come after me." He says.

Dean's jaw tighten. "You know what, that's it." He pulled the car over and parked it. "This is about Jessica, isn't it? Do you think that's your dirty little secret, that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop, man. I mean, the nightmares and calling her name out in the middle of the night—it's gonna kill you. Now listen to me—It wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place."

"I don't blame you."

"Well, you shouldn't blame yourself, because there nothing you could've done." Dean tried to convince him and at the same time trying to understand what was holding his brother back.

"I could've warned her."

"About what? You didn't know what was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn't a secret, I mean all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway."

"No, you don't."

"I don't what?"

"You know all about it," Sam said. "I haven't told you everything."

Dean took a moment to process what Sam said. "What are you talking about?"

"Well it wouldn't be a secret if I told you, would it?"

Dean looked a bit taken back. "No. I don't like it. It's not gonna happen, forget it."

"Would you rather let Alice do it then? Because she would, in a heartbeat." Sam saw Dean clench the steering wheel tightly. "You're so obvious, dude." He sighed. "Dean that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it. And you know what? Who knows how many people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this."

Dean was caught between a rock and a hard place. He either lets Alice do it, and she would or his own brother. And honestly...he rather not have either of them do it, but Sam wasn't going to budge from his decision.

* * *

Alice looked over her shoulder and waited with anticipation as Sam tried to pick the lock to the antic shop. It made a click and they swiftly walked inside, shutting the door behind them. A pit formed in their stomach though when they saw that half the store was riddled with all different kinds of mirrors.

"Well...that's just great," Dean grumbled and brought out Mary's death picture and looked at the mirror. It was large and had a decorative gold frame. So they knew what they were looking for. "All right let's start looking."

They split off and went down different aisles. Alice lifted her flashlight and flashed it at a couple of mirrors, watching as the light bounced off it. They were looking for this mirror for a couple of minutes and came up with nothing.

"Maybe they've already sold it," Dean called back.

Alice frowned. "God I hope not."

Moments later Sam called out to them, his voice low and ominous. "I don't think so."

They walked back over to where Sam was standing. He stood before a large mirror with a gold frame.

Dean took out the picture to confirm and held it up. "That's it. You sure about this?"

Sam said nothing to his brother and handed his flashlight over to him. He clenched the crowbar tightly and stared the mirror down. "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary." He gave Dean and Alice who looked unsure and concerned. Sam sucked in a deep breath. "Bloody Mary."

Alice looked over her shoulder and saw a light coming through the front of the store. They looked like headlights. "Crap." She mumbled and gestured towards it.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Alice and I will go check it out. Stay here, be careful." He began to follow Alice towards the door. "Smash anything that moves." He called back to his brother one last time.

Dean kneeled down beside Alice. She peeked her head out from the edge and frowned. "Damn...10 bucks that it's cops."

"I'm not going to place a bet I'll lose." Dean sighed and dropped his crowbar. "Come on."

Alice was reluctant at first but groaned. She placed her crowbar against the wall and followed Dean out where they were immediately greeted with armed cops who aimed their guns at them.

"Hold it." They order and Alice and Dean quickly raised their hands up in the air.

"Whoa guys, false alarm, we just tripped the system." Dean played it cool with them. He looked at Alice and she was clearly glaring at them.

"Who are you?" One demanded.

"I'm the boss's kid. This is my wife." Dean gestured to Alice who looked dumbfounded at his lie.

The cops looked just as confused. "You're Mister Yamashiro's kid?"

Damn.

Alice frowned and dropped her hands. In a flashed she clocked one cop in the face and kicked the one behind her in the chest before elbowing him hard in the rib cage. They both fell to the ground and Dean stood there for a second as the wheel's in his head started to spin.

"Wife? Seriously? How many chances are you going to take?" She complained.

Dean innocently shrugged his shoulders. "Come on. We don't have time for this."

* * *

It felt like his eyeballs were on fire. They throbbed and blood flowed down his cheeks. Sam crumbled to his knees and withered in pain as his reflection taunted him with words mixed with fire and venom.

"You never told her the truth—who you really were. But it's more than that, isn't it? Those nightmares you've been having of Jessica dying, screaming, burning—You had them for days before she died. Didn't you!? You were so desperate to ignore them, to believe they were just dreams. How could you ignore them like that? How could you leave her alone to die!? You dreamt it would happen!" The glass suddenly shattered into pieces when Alice flung her crowbar from across the aisle. Breaking the hold it held on Sam.

Dean ran to his brother and bent down to pick him up. "Sam, Sammy!" He called to him.

Sam scoffed weakly. "It's Sam."

Dean felt a weight behind lifted off his shoulder. "God, you okay?"

"Uh, yeah."

Alice picked her crowbar up from the shattered remains of the mirror. "Come on, boys. Let's get the hell out of here."

Dean and Alice grabbed Sam, one arm each and wrapped it around their shoulders and started to carry him out. Their hearts literately fell to the lowest pits of hell when they hear the sound of glass moving behind them. Over their shoulders, the nightmare was far from over when a hand reached through the mirror frame and out climbed a young girl with black hair covering their faces. Mary herself. She stood up in a twitchy manner as blood began to drip from Dean and Alice's eyes. They collapsed to the floor as their eyes started to feel like they were being stabbed by a white-hot iron. Alice grit her teeth together and glared through her bloodshot eyes. She kicked her heel against a smaller mirror that was up against the wall and pushed it over towards Dean's reach. He grabbed it quickly and held up in front of Mary.

The young girl stared at her reflection as blood started to fall from her own eyes. Her reflection barked at her now. "You killed them! All those people! You killed them." Mary began to choke and grab her neck before she melted into nothing but a pile of blood on the ground, morphing to small glass shards on impact.

Dean threw the mirror down and it shattered. "Hey, Alice..." He called out weekly with blood still flowing from his eyes.

"...What." Alice rubbed the blood away.

"This has got to be like...what 600 years bad luck?"

Sam chuckled weakly and Alice rolled her eyes, regretting it because it hurt.

* * *

Dean drove up to Charlie's house and parked the Impala right outside it. He cut it off and looked back at her just as Alice drove up next to the window, taking her helmet off.

Charlie looked up. "So this is really over?" She asked and looked out the open window to Alice.

"Yeah." Alice cut her bike off for a minute to speak. "About smashed every mirror in the place, but yeah...it's over now."

Charlie smiled sheepishly. "Thank you." She got out of the car and gave Alice a strong handshake.

Sam called back to her. "Charlie?" She stopped and turned around. "Your boyfriend's death...you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen."

Charlie smiled very faintly at them before turning back around and headed up to her house.

Dean gently smacked Sam on the shoulder. "That's good advice." He gave a signal to Alice before turning back on the Impala and began to drive away with Alice quickly taking the lead. "Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what that secret is."

"Look...you're my brother and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself." Sam looked out the window just in time to see Jessica out on the side of the street in a white dress. He watched her for the longest time before she disappeared behind a pole.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Another day, another slow update. But hey, at least it's out. It ain't perfect but I got better plans for specific and more exciting chapters this season so please just be patient with me. **

**Back when I wanted to create an oc character for Dean, I imagined this beautiful badass, biker chick who could kick anyone's ass. I know that we haven't seen Alice in any action so far but that's what we got the next chapter for. We'll finally see what she's made of so be on the lookout. **


	6. Skin Part 1

**SKIN PART 1**

Finding a gas station during a long drive was like heaven for Alice. Dean never saw her jump off her bike so fast and stretch out every muscle in her body till her bones creaked and popped.

He pulled up next to her and parked. "You alright?" He called to her.

Alice popped her neck side to side and took in a deep breath filled with fresh air and diesel. "Yeah. Long drives like that really do kill me, you know."

Dean saw an opportunity when she said that and didn't wast a second. "You could start riding in the back with us instead. It probably would be easier for all of us."

Alice scoffed. "That doesn't sound so bad. Maybe finally you can stop looking at my ass while we're driving." She cocked a smirk.

So she actually figured it out. Dean didn't find it to be a big loss. Looking at her ass while driving, but looking at her face while inside the Impala, his baby, honestly sounded better. Two good things in one. Win-win in his opinion.

Alice stuck her head in the window. "I'm not wasting another minute having a topic about my ass." She cased a glance to Dean. "I was thinking we can hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight."

"You sure you can handle a long ride like that?" Dean raised an eyebrow and tossed her a playful smirk.

"You think you're so funny." Alice rolled her eyes. She smiled and pulled his head back and forth until he cracked a grin. Her eyes fell on Sam and noticed that he hasn't said a word this whole time. "Sammy?" She called out to see if he would react to that nickname.

"It's Sam." He corrected, so he was paying attention. "I was listening, I'm just busy." He said while checking e-mails on his PalmPilot.

"Busy doing what?" Dean asked.

"Reading e-mails."

Alice backed away when Dean got out of the car to fill up on gas. "E-mails from who?" He asked.

"From my friends at Stanford." He called out to his brother.

Dean grinned. "You're kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?"

"Why not?" Sam questioned his big brother.

Alice began to pump gas into her bike since she was about empty. The gas station really was heaven sent. "What do you tell them?" She was generally curious since it was near to impossible to explain their job. Saving people and hunting things.

"I tell them I am on a road trip with my big brother. I tell 'em I needed some time off after Jess." Sam explained.

Dean eyed him. "Oh, so you lie to them."

He looked confused. "No. I just don't tell them...everything." He heard Alice snicker. "What? It's not lying."

Her lips curled up into a smirk. "Yeah but...this ain't a road trip, so you're technically..." She shrugged her shoulders. "I understand where you're coming from though. Can't even imagine telling people about this job."

"How many people have you told?" Sam asked.

"Only a handful. Some not taking it so well and others not believing me at all. Telling me and Aiden that 'We're crazy bastards'." Alice stopped altogether about telling people the truth and reality, lying was the best option. She remembers Aiden jokingly calling her a compulsive liar. It's a bad habit, but it saved the pain she might cause others.

"So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?" He was a bit dumbfounded that both Dean and Alice shrugged their shoulders. "You're serious?"

Dean scoffed. "Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period."

Sam gave him a long and skeptical stare. "If that was the case then Alice wouldn't be here." His brother frowned at that and actually thought it over. "You're both pretty anti-social enough that it cancels out. You two get along well enough that it's creepy."

"Yeah, whatever." Dean turned around and saw Alice smirking at the corner of his eye.

That may be because of Aiden. His and Dean's personality is strikingly similar so that may be why she and Dean got along so well. The man always liked playing pranks on her and had a constant laid-back attitude, seemingly never taking anything seriously. That was a big reason why Alice was so comfortable around Dean because he reminded her of her brother.

God, she misses him. Not a day goes by that she doesn't have dreams or random memories about Aiden.

Sam's eyes fell over an e-mail he was reading before his face fell. "God..."

"What?" Dean stuck his head in the window.

He scanned through an e-mail. "In this e-mail from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine."

"Is she hot?" Dean felt Alice slap him on the back of the head. "Ow! Really?"

She looked him dead in the eye. "Ah-huh." She said flatly.

Sam sighed and shook his head, taking his attention away from them. "I went to school with her, and her brother, Zack. She said Zack's been charged with murder. He's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."

Alice snapped her fingers to have a look. "That's unfortunate." She looked over it herself.

"Dude, what kind of people are you hanging out with," Dean said.

"No, man, I know Zack. He's no killer." Sam defended.

"Well, maybe you know Zack, as well as he, knows you."

Alice leaned against the Impala and read through the e-mail with cynical eyes. It's said that they found his prints and everything, so the chase should be strong against him but... Alice didn't know. Something just seemed off. Like her gut was telling her that this case was wrong and more met the eye.

"Where does she live?" She asked.

"They're in St. Louis." He answered and saw the shift in her intimidating blue eyes.

"Hey..." She handed the PalmPilot back. "If you wanna check up on them then that's fine. We can head over there."

Dean looked baffled. "What?" He blurted out.

Sam was taken back by the suggestion. Yeah, he wanted to go back for Rebecca but Alice was the last person he thought would be the one to suggest it. "Really?" He cracked a smile and felt thankful.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Hell, why not."

Dean was less than pleased. "Ah, Alice? You do realize that St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, right?" He looked at her like she was crazy.

Alice cocked a brow. "Yeah?"

Dean was now on a stare down match with Alice's unwavering gaze and Sam's puppy dog eyes. This was a losing battle with his crush and brother, a battle he knew he was never going to win.

A minute later Alice and the Impala tore out of the gas station and started to drive in the opposite direction.

* * *

Rebecca opened the door when it rang and a smile stretched to her lips when she saw Sam on the other side with Dean and Alice behind him.

"Oh my God, Sam!" Her eyes brightened up.

"Well, if it isn't little Becky," Sam smirked.

"You know what you can do with that little Becky crap." She opened her arms and brought his 6'4 self down into a tight hug.

"I got your e-mail." His voice dropped with concern and there was a change in Rebecca's voice.

"I didn't think that you would come here." She said.

Dean took the silence and stepped forward to shake her hand with his usual charming grin. "Dean. Older Brother."

Sam quickly picked up on Alice anti-socialness when she didn't say anything and stepped aside for her. "And this is Alice. She's a good friend of the family."

Rebecca smiled politely. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

Alice nodded her head and shook her hand. "Alice Cromwell. Sorry to hear about your brother." She offered her condolences.

"We're here to help. Whatever we can do." Sam said and Rebecca smiled.

"Come in." She moved aside and they walked into the rather nicely decorated house.

"Nice place." Dean looked around.

"It's my parents'. I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened." Rebecca led them into the kitchen. "I decided to take the semester off. I'm gonna stay until Zack's free." She explained.

"Where are your folks?" Sam noticed that the house was quiet and no one else came to the door when they rang it.

"They live in Paris for half the year, so they're on their way home for the trial. Do you guys want a beer or something." She gestured to the fridge.

"Hey-Ouf!" Dean began before Alice swatted her hand against his stomach when Rebecca wasn't looking.

"We're fine. Thank you." Alice followed up, cocking a brow at Dean when he gave her a judgmental look.

Sam looked down to hide his smile."So, tell us what happened."

Rebecca swallowed hard and her eyes became a bit glassy. "Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing. So, he called 911, and the police—they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could've killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police—they have a video. It's from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight."

Two places at once. That caught Alice's attention and her eyes widen a bit with suspicion, mind racing if these could be a case she could actually work. It was a bit surprising that her gut instincts were that strong.

"You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack's house." Sam suggested and Rebecca hesitated with the request.

"Why? I mean, what could you do?"

"Well, me, not much. Alice though is a cop." Sam saw Alice's eyes widen with confusion. "Technically, detective actually."

Alice was quiet for a moment for the gears in her head to began turning again. "Off-duty at the moment. I worked in Bisbee, Arizona." She followed up smoothly.

Rebecca appreciated it but was still hesitating. "You guys, it's so nice to offer, but I just—I don't know."

Sam pleated. "Bec, look, I know Zack didn't do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent."

Rebecca thought it over for a moment. "Okay. I'm gonna go get the keys." She said and walked down the hall to fetch them.

Dean whistled when she walked off. "Oh, yeah, man, you're a real straight shooter with your friends."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, Zack and Becky need our help."

"I just don't think this is our kind of problem."

"So you're just gonna ignore the gears spinning in Alice's head." Sam pointed at Alice who looked a bit dumbfounded that he noticed. "Come on, Alice. You noticed that something was up, right?"

Alice's lips began to quiver when she looked into the eyes of the big giant of a puppy dog. "Well...I worked on less."

* * *

The door opened with a loud and ominous creaking noise and the smell of stale blood rushed to Alice's nose when she walked in, greeted by the sight of blood smears covering the whole living room. Looks like a scene out of a horror movie.

Alice's face cringed. "The place would have been nicer if not for the blood." She said and Sam gave her a judging look. "What?"

Alice's lack of empathy aside, Sam noticed that Rebecca was still standing on the porch.

"Bec, you wanna stay outside?" He asked to make sure since he didn't want to put her in an uncomfortable situation.

Rebecca sucked in as much courage as she could. "No. I wanna help." She ducked under the police tape.

Dean and Alice slowly searched around the house and looked over all the blood smears the riddled this one place. Alice could guess that's probably when the murder happened.

She stopped walking and gave an extra long stare at the picture of Zack and his girlfriend. Her eyes fell sadly a little and she looked up to take a glance to Dean.

Sam made to be really gentle when he spoke to her. "Tell us what else the police said.

Rebecca was slowly coming to tears. "Well, there no sign of a break-in. They say Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers...they're already talking about a plea bargain." Her eyes fell upon the mess of a murder scene. "Oh, God..." Her voice began to crack.

Alice picked her head up and looked to the window when she heard the loud and bothering bark of the neighbor's dog. She walked over to the window and saw the poor thing pitching a bloody fit about something.

She frowned. "Rebecca." She called out. "Did anything happen before the murder? Like involving Zack."

Rebecca nodded. "Um, there was something, about a week before. Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes. Zack's clothes. The police don't think it's anything. I mean, we're not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed." She shrugged.

Alice slowly nodded her head but her face began to twist the more information she got. "One more thing. Do you think you can get your hands on the security footage? It's not in my jurisdiction."

"I already got it."

Alice cocked a brow. "What?"

Rebecca smiled sheepishly. "I didn't wanna say something in front of the cop. I stole it off the lawyer's desk. I just had to see it for myself."

Alice stifled a laugh. "Don't worry about it. It's a big help."

* * *

They looked through the security tapes back at Rebecca's house and looked through them with close and diligent eyes.

"Here he comes," Rebecca said as Zack showed up on the screen for a second before walking off.

Dean noticed the timestamp. "22:04, that's just after ten. You said the time of death was about 10:30."

"Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert. He says the tape's authentic. It wasn't tampered with." Rebecca said.

Alice's eyes narrowed very slightly when Zack walked off the last screen until he disappeared. She nudged Sam standing beside her and made a gesturing movement to Rebecca.

Sam immediately picked up on her signal that told him that she saw something. "Hey, Bec." He said. "Can we take those beers now?"

She nodded her head. "Oh, sure." She got up to head to the kitchen when Sam called back one last time.

"Hey." He said rather sheepishly. "Maybe some sandwiches, too?"

Rebecca cracked a smile. "What do you think this is, Hooters?" She left the room while Dean laughed.

"I wish." He walked over to Alice and Sam. "What is it?"

Sam handed the controller to Alice so she could rewind the tape a bit, going frame by frame over Zack's face, stopping when his eyes suddenly flared up on the screen. That wasn't normal. Alice saw this enough to know exactly what this was.

"Shit..." She cursed and felt her stomach hit the floor.

"Maybe it's a camera flare," Dean suggested and got an offended look by Alice.

"It's not." She corrected firmly. "Don't you know? It's said that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul."

"Right." Dean nodded his head.

"I didn't want to believe it at first when the dog outside when totally ape, but this...those eyes." She let out a sigh that was filled with newfound frustration. "We got something nasty on our hands here." Her voice dropped. "It's a damn shapeshifter."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Let me explain. I hate that it takes such a long time to post these chapters so I thought it would be better to post half an episode for now and do the rest some other week. **

**I truly don't know why it takes me such a long time to do these chapters. I have no time is what I think. I have three other stories I post weekly and three other ones I post randomly. **

**But I think I'm gonna do this method for now on. Just to give you guys something."**


	7. Skin Part 2

**SKIN PART 2**

Alice's crimson bike and the black Impala drove up through the back roads of the neighborhood before their engines shut off. Sam jumped out first and Alice shook her hair once she pulled her helmet off. Dean was still a bit grumpy and was dragging his feet. It was early in the morning, way too early for him since he was so used to sleeping in half the time. It baffles him to this day how Alice and Sam could jump out of bed with as much energy as they have.

"Alright, so what are we doing here at 5:30 in the morning?" Dean whined. He leaned against the hood of his baby with a cup of coffee in his hand that Alice bought for him.

"Because," Alice shut her bike off and got off. "The videotape showed the killer going in but not out."

"So, he came out the back door?" Dean cocked a brow and watched his brother and Alice look around the alleyway near the house.

"Right. So, there should be a trail to follow. A trail the police would never pursue." Sam said.

"'Cause they think the killer never left. And they caught your friend Zack inside." Dean deducted but mumbled under his breath loud enough for Alice to hear (She has sharp ears). "I still don't know what we're doing here at 5:30 in the morning."

Alice stopped mid-search and rolled her eyes all the way to the back of her skull. "You're welcome to sleep in the car."

Dean may be tired as hell but no way was he going to pass up an opportunity to get out a flirty comment towards her. "Only if you join me, Alice. Only if you join me." He clicked his tongue and winked an eye.

Now it was Sam's turn to roll his eyes. He ignored Dean's flirt towards the hard Cromwell woman and continued to search. He stopped when something red caught his eye. "Alice." He called out and gestured to the telephone pole that had a smear of blood on it. "Blood. Somebody came this way."

Alice crouched down in front of the pole and held her hand up, noticing that it was in the shape of a handprint. She groaned deeply with herself and dropped her hands to her knees. "Yeah, but..." she looked around. "Trail ends here."

They looked up at the same time when the sound of an alarm echoed in the air. A couple of moments later an ambulance drove by the alleyway and caught their attention. Sam, Dean, and Alice wasted no time in checking it out and saw a crowd forming outside a house that was locked down tight with police cars and their sirens going off.

Dean walked up to a nearby lady. "What happened?" He asked.

"He tried to kill his wife. Tied her up and beat her." She explained.

"Really?" Sam questioned the statement with a baffled expression.

"I used to see him going to work in the morning. He'd wave, say hello. He seemed like such a nice guy."

They watched as the helpless husband, with deep depression on his face, get put in the back of a police car.

At the time they didn't notice that Alice walked off and came back a few moments later. She lifted her finger and gestured the boys over for a private conversation. By the look in her eyes, Sam and Dean figured out that Alice was on to something.

"What is it?" Dean asked after taking a step aside away from the crowd.

"Talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene," Alice gave a shifty look to the police car taking the husband away. "Apparently, the husband was driving back from a business trip when his wife was attacked." She crossed her arms over her chest and they began to walk back to their vehicles. "I was right about the shapeshifter. The dude was in two places at once."

Dean took in a deep breath. "Bet you it's the same thing doing it too."

Alice cracked a grin. "You're right about that one. It _is_ the same damn thing," she said. "A while back, I had Aiden write everything down about shapeshifters in the Cromwell journal...but his dumbass wrote nothing useful in it. He took up all the extra pages with his rants about how much he hated these things." She heard Dean snicker beside her.

"I really wish I could've met your brother," he said.

"You two would have gotten along like two peas in a pod," Alice said, sure of herself.

Alice could remember looking through the journal and seeing Aiden's awful handwriting scribble things down like, 'I hate these damn things!' 'Why do these things even exist?' and 'Screw this job, screw shapeshifters, I'm going to bed!'

"Did he really not write down anything that could help?" Sam was kind of desperate for Alice's help since she seems to be the only one who had the most experience in these kinds of jobs.

"Yeah. A couple of things." She answered.

Sam's eyes lit up. "What were they?"

Alice stopped walking and grinned like a mad man. "Their most liked hiding spots." She gestured down to her heels that were standing on a manhole cover.

* * *

There was this warm and musty breeze below the manhole cover once they climbed down into the sewer system.

Sam looked around and saw that many paths branch off. "I bed this runs right by Zack's house, too. So the shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around?" He looked back at Alice.

"Yeah, it always seems to be the same pattern with these things." Alice nodded her head.

"She's right," Dean called out to them who was crouched down in front of something. They walked over to it and saw a...pile of slop, hair, and blood. Dean pulled out his knife and wicked it open, holding up a piece of oily slop and hair. "Alice? Any idea what this crap is?"

"It's skin," Alice said bluntly in a monotone voice.

Dean immediately dropped the skin peel and jumped away like the floor was made of lava. His faced twisted with disgust. Alice though looked like she was enjoying herself.

She cracked a grin. "You boys didn't know? When shapeshifters change shape...they shed their skin." her smile was morbid and leered with dark humor that the boys picked up on really quick.

Sam's face turned pale and he began to feel his stomach twist. "That's sick."

* * *

It was time to work now. They knew where it could most likely be and they knew how to kill them. Dean popped open the trunk of his car and fished around for his and Sam's pistol, now loaded with silver rounds. Alice pulled out what looked to be a compact CZ pistol with an extended mag for extra rounds.

"Well, one thing I don't have to ask Alice about is how to kill them. No matter what kind of shifter it is, there's one way to dust them." He packed his pistol with silver.

Sam cocked a grin. "Silver bullet to the heart."

"That's right."

Alice cocked her gun, safely off, and tucked it away in her thigh holster. She also decided to bring an extra mag, just in case, and two silver knives that she tucked in her belt. She didn't want to be caught with her pants down when up against a shifter and pull an 'Aiden'. The man made it a nasty habit of losing his only gun and going one on one with the creature until Alice showed up to save him.

Her blue eyes caught a glance at Dean's gun. "Hey," Alice called out and gestured for him to hand it over. "Let me have a look at that."

Dean furrowed a brow but handed his pistol over. "Why? Don't tell me you're going to start critiquing me."

Alice rolled her eyes and took a look at his gun out of sheer curiosity. It was a Colt .45 M 1911A1 with nickel plating and ivory handles. "Nah. I was just thinking..it's a good looking gun." She let a smile slip to her lips while handing it back to Dean.

Dean immediately took pride in her comment and started to boast about it. "Well, you know...I like to ride with style." He tried to act like he wasn't all giddy but he didn't hide it well.

Alice snickered a bit while leaning against her bike. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Does that mean I know what to give you for your birthday?" Dean frowned when this thought came to mind. "Which reminds me. I don't even know how old you are."

Alice opened her mouth then shut it rather quickly when he made a point. She doesn't recall at all even mentioning anything about her age or birthday, such important things too.

"You got a point." Alice frowned when this spark of some sort suddenly warmed her heart. "I'm 24. I was born on October 31, 1980."

The moment she said that the instant Dean suddenly burst out into a full body laugh, realizing that Alice was born on Halloween. The scariest and spookiest day of the year, and she's a dang Cromwell hunter? You can either call that fate or just bad luck. Either way, Dean was laughing until his stomach started to hurt.

Alice's face burned red and she began to smack him in the back but it didn't work, he only defended himself and laughed harder. "I know I was born on Halloween, so you can shut up about it now!"

Sam smiled while watching Alice chase Dean around the Impala. The phone began to ring so he dragged his attention away from them.

"This is Sam." He answered and heard Rebecca on the other end.

"Where are you?" She asked, or demanded.

"We're near Zack's, we're just checking some things out."

"Well, look, Sam, just stop, 'cause I don't really need your help anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told the lawyers that we went to the crime scene."

Sam scoffed. "Why would you do that?"

"Well, I told them that we were with a police officer. And They checked it out, and they told me that there is no Detective Alice Cromwell."

"Bec-"

"No, I don't understand why you would lie to me about something like that."

"We're trying to help."

"Oh, trying to help? Do you realize that that was a sealed crime scene? This could have just ruined Zack's case."

"I'm sorry, but-"

"No, goodbye, Sam." She didn't let him finish and hung up right after she was done tearing into him, leaving Sam feeling a bit hollow.

After Alice was done chasing Dean (Leaving a sore in his back) he walked over to his silent brother. "I hate to say it, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you, they'd be freaked. It's just—It be easier if-"

"If I was like you or Alice." Sam finished.

Dean cocked a smirk. "Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people. But I'll tell you one thing. This whole gig—it ain't with perks."

Sam looked over and saw Alice handing him a fully loaded pistol, ready to go. He grabbed it and tucked it behind his jeans.

* * *

After night fell, they sank right back into the sewers that smelled worse than usual. The air was hot, humid and all around a mucky place to be in. Alice, Sam, and Dean were armed to the teeth and had their flashlights shining down the tunnels in search for their shifty-eyed friend.

"I think we're close to its lair." Dean brought up while trailing behind Sam and Alice.

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.

"Because there's another puke-inducing pile next to your face."

Sam turned around and saw yet another pile of skin and blood hanging on the pipes. His face turned green and he jumped away from it.

Alice snickered and shined her light at more piles of flesh and blood. "Looks like it's been down here for a while."

Sam's face twisted. "Who knows how many murders he's gotten away with?" Sam turned around and jumped when he saw the shifter standing right behind his brother, his eyes shifting in the light. "Dean!" Sam screeched.

The shifter punched Dean in the shoulder, hard, but had to flee when Alice turned around, determination in her eyes and started to open fire at him. The shifter managed to escape through the narrow tunnels though but not before being chased down by a pissed off Alice.

Sam moved over to his brother to make sure he was alright.

"Get the son of a bitch!" Dean hissed before him and Sam took off to follow Alice and the shifter.

* * *

The shifter managed to climb out of the manhole, sweating with crazy fear that he just experienced from having Alice on his ass the whole chase. He didn't stick around for long because the sound of clicking heels was right behind him. He bolted up and fled away through the park. Alice climbed out only 10 seconds later and thrashed her head around to spot the shifter but could not find him at all in the dead of night with very little light.

"Dammit." She cursed and put her gun right back in her holster to not draw attention to herself or the boys who were just now getting out. "Lost him." Alice frowned and helped Dean out of the manhole since he was hurt.

"All right, let's split up," Sam said.

They gave each other a short nod and ran in opposite directions to continue the hunt.

* * *

After a fruitless search, Sam was waiting back at the Impala with Dean right beside him.

"She's late," Sam mumbled, a bit nervous now since Alice was taking a long time to get back. "Think something happened?"

Dean furrowed his brows, looking a bit offended. "Alice...getting into trouble and needing help? Come on man." He pushed the thought away since he had that much trust and confidence in the woman to save herself. Dean felt his phone began to buzz and reached for it.

A few seconds later, they saw Alice off in the distance jogging up to them with a mildly-annoyed look in her eyes.

"Hey, boys," Alice grumbled. "No luck?"

Dean furrowed his brow and looked at his phone like something was bothering him. "No. He's gone." He said anyways and shut the phone off. "Think he found another way underground?"

Alice shrugged but sighed with disappointment. "Probably. Damn things slippery, I'll give it that."

"Yeah..." Dean slowly nodded his head and reached his hand behind his back. "Sure is." He suddenly whipped his pistol out and pointed it right at Alice.

Alice's blue eyes immediately widen with confusion. She raised her hands in the air. "Dean? The hell are you doing?"

Sam actually jumped back from his brother's stunt, looking just as surprised by Dean's actions. "Dude put the gun down. You're pointing a gun at Alice right now." He said slowly but the stony look in Dean's eyes said differently.

Dean said nothing but pulled out his phone and tossed it to Sam. "I'm not." he cocked a weary smirk. "You see, I just got a text from Alice 10 seconds ago saying, 'Decided to head back to the motel. We'll regroup there'. Next time, don't pick my girl as a skin to walk around in.

The shifters eyes widen for only a second in shock before narrowing. "Well, that's unfortunate." She grabbed Dean's gun and knocked it back against his face before swinging her leg around and striking Sam in the head, knocking him out and leaving Dean alone to face down the shifter in Alice's form.

Dean crumbled to the ground and held his bleeding nose. "Ow! Son of a..." He looked up and was met with the barrel of his own gun held by the shifter. "You...I swear I'm gonna-"

"Shoot me?" The shifter, in Alice's voice, scoffed. "You had the chance, you knew it was me the moment I walked up to you boys...but you didn't have the balls to do it." She cocked her head to the side, her eyes shifting under the pale light. "You wanna know why?" Her voice dripped with a threatening undertone. "Because you didn't wanna shoot the girl you like."

Dean's eyes widen but he couldn't get a word in before being knocked out.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Oh boy. The boys were caught but not Alice? Looks like we got another rescue mission on our hands. Still, I wonder what secrets the shifter will spill out with Dean since we now know (If it wasn't already obvious) that he loves Alice. Be on the lookout for the next chapter, the final chapter because we'll finally see the real Alice and how badass I intend to make her!**

**I was wondering what Alice's birthday would be but decided it would be funny if it was on Halloween (Which is also my birthday). Dean's definitely gonna like that one for future Halloween episodes. And if you don't remember, I already mentioned Alice's age in Windigo but changed it because I was wrong, whoops (She was originally 25 but changed it to 24. Sorry about that). I wanted her to be a bit younger than Dean but not so young to be close to Sam's age. She's kinda in the middle. Aiden was like...28 years old at the time of his death. **


	8. Skin Part 3

**SKIN PART 3**

"Damn..." Alice thinned her lips the longer she stared up at the clock that continued to tick away her precious time. "Where the hell are they?"

She's been sitting alone in the motel room for about an hour now and has had nothing but silence from her phone after she sent that text to Dean. She knows they're not hopeless children who were new to this life. Sam and Dean are professionals when it came to hunting, so they could take care of themselves. Yet, shifters are kinda tricky. When they change shape and keep their victims alive, they're able to 'download' that person's memories and use it to their advantage. She and Aiden had a couple of run-ins with that problem in the past.

Alice tapped her fingers against the table when this dreading, cold feeling like needles in her spine halted her fingers, making them twitch with growing anticipation. Never realizing it to now that the shifter...might have taken another shape.

"Damn..." Alice jolted up from her seat and knocked the chair over. She grabbed her jacket, gun, and holster off the table and began to head for the door. "Son of a bitch, I freaking screwed up."

* * *

Dean grit his teeth through the pain and was finally able to crawl out of unconsciousness. Everything was blurry at first but his eyes quickly adjusted to the dim lights. He looked up and saw Alice's familiar blue eyes staring down at him. "Alice?" He said in a groggy voice.

Alice smiled at him, but it was different. It didn't have that snarky sense to it and felt more menacing and lacked the humor in it. This wasn't Alice. It was the damn shifter who was still taking his girl's form.

"Oh, you son of a bitch." Dean cursed through his teeth and immediately felt irritated. He was tied up, dragged to this sewers and was now being taunted by a bastard who was taking Alice's form on purpose.

The shifter cocked her head to the side, her smirk still present on her lips. "Is that any way to talk to your crush?"

Dean gave a sharp laugh. "I swear, when I get out of this, I'm gonna shoot you in the face."

The Alice-shifter cocked a brow. "You had your chance, handsome. You couldn't pull the trigger."

"I'm not gonna make the same mistake twice." He growled. "What the hell did you do with my brother and my girl."

"Well, the real deal for this sexy hunk of leather is back at the motel room as she said she was, and your brother..." The Alice-shifter looked up and gestured her head to the other side of the room where Sam laid unconscious and half-covered with a tarp.

Dean called out but his brother didn't answer him. "Sammy?" He could see that Sam was still alive so that was a big relief. "If you did anything to him, I swear-"

"Shoot me in the face. I know." The Alice-shifter said with a crooked grin. "Still, pretty cold, don't you think? Killing me despite everything we have done together. What I've done for your boys-"

"Don't give me that crap." Dean cut in harshly and didn't give the shifter a chance to play with him. "That was Alice. Not you. You don't even know a damn thing about her."

She was quiet for a moment before the biggest and most twisted grin stretched to her lips. It gave him this unsettling feeling. "I know my mother passed away from cancer and Aiden died two years back during a Wendigo hunt. Funny enough we actually met on a similar hunt back in Colorado." She waited as Dean's face contorted with shock before she belted out a laugh. "That it! That's the face I wanted to see." Her grin fell and she winched in pain, grabbing her head as it throbbed with Alice's memories. "Hell, even I have to admit that you're a good-looking man."She fought a grin.

"How the hell do you know all that?" Dean demanded and looked horrified that this monster knew such crucial information.

The Alice-shifter gave an innocent look and shrugged. She then kneeled in front of Dean and tried to grab his gaze. He looked away but not for long till the shifter grabbed his face and forced him to look at her blue eyes.

She spoke with this sickly sweet voice. "You really can't look at me without seeing your Alice, huh."

From the striking and define blue eyes, the snarky grin, her low and mischievous that can grow very serious and cold. Damn. She really did look like Alice. But despite all that...it seemed all wrong. This monster was wrong and he could see it now. It may look like Alice but all the mannerisms were nothing alike. The Alice-shifter was nothing but a cheap knock off from the original.

"It's cute though. You look at her when you think she didn't notice, and she looks at you when you don't." She chuckled. "Trust me...she looks at you a lot...It's unfortunate though, cause she won't even give you the time of day to act on those feelings that you both have."

Dean said nothing and forced his face away from her.

The shifter got up. "Anyways. I don't have time to break it easy to you. I got a date with little Becky. Just..." she looked down at herself. "Just not with these clothes."

She walked away and left Dean alone with his thoughts, the words playing on repeat in his head.

* * *

"Christ-all-mighty." Alice let out an exasperated and growling sigh to vent her frustration of having to go back into the sewers once more.

It was dark as hell and her single light wasn't helping much to pierce through the pitch blackness, and every water splash from a dripping pipe made her body clench up with anxiety. Alice wasn't sure if her mind was playing tricks on her, but she felt like it stunk more then usual.

Alice's hand never left her gun holster and her eyes stayed firmly focused on the murky path in front of her as soon as she saw the piles of shifter skin and hair. Her eyes narrowed when she noticed in the corner of the path was a new pile of skin, hair and female clothes. A gray tank top, leather jacket, dark blue jeans, and black wedges.

"Son of a..." Alice gritted her teeth and picked up the top before staring down at herself, wearing the exact same clothes. "You gotta be kidding me." She threw the top down and marched further down into the freaks lair. It would make sense of the shifter used Alice's form to trick them if that was the case.

After a moment, a very distinct voice shouted through the long tunnels. "That better be you, Alice and not that freak of nature!" She heard Dean's voice echo out from the halls.

"Dean? Sam?" Alice jogged down the end of the long, dripping halls of filth and came into a room where she saw Sam and Dean tied up to large pipes. "You guys alright?" Alice moved over to Dean to get him untied first.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Dean quickly cut in and Alice halted. "How do I know your not the shifter?"

"Are we really gonna have this conversation right now?" Alice protested and ignored Dean's warning. She kneeled in front of him and whipped out a knife from her back pocket. "If you wanna attack me after I get you loose, then go ahead."

Sam was still a bit groggy after waking up but even he can tell it was her with that remark. Besides, why would the shifter free them after going through the trouble of locking them up in the first place? "Dean said the shifter went to Rebecca's in your shape." He called out, cranking his head over his shoulder.

Alice froze after cutting the rope tied around Dean. "Oh...not quite, boys. I found a fresh pile of skin along with the exact same clothes I wear. The shifter changed its shape. It could be anyone right now." She got up and moved over to Sam and cut him loose.

"The shifter said it was going to Rebecca's," Dean yanked the ropes off him. "So who else could it choose to go as?" He saw Alice's face turn grim. "What?"

Alice finally freed Sam from his bonds. "I got a guess..."

* * *

Alice and the boys finally made it back to the surface after searching for an exit out of the sewers. They wandered the streets till they came upon a store that displayed TV screens reporting the news. It didn't take them long to figure out what damage the shifter did in the short time he was away. A rough sketch of Dean's face popped up as the perpetrator for Rebecca's assault. Lucky it said she was still alive but the shifter got away.

Of course, Dean was less than pleased. "Man! That's not even a good picture." He complained.

Alice and Sam looked around cautiously at everyone to make sure no one was watching them since they were in the open.

"It's good enough," Sam said.

Alice looked around to make sure no one was watching and shoved the boys into an alleyway where it was dark enough so no one would see them.

"They said attempted murder. At least we know-" Sam was cut off.

"I didn't kill her," Dean snapped.

Alice looked over her shoulder a couple of times as they walked. "Sam can go check up on Rebecca tomorrow. Make sure she's fine and all."

Dean was still fuming about the whole ordeal. "All right, but first I wanna find that handsome devil and kick the holy crap out of him."

"We don't have enough weapons, much less silver bullets," Alice cut in.

Dean stopped them. "Guys, the guy's walking around with my face, okay? It's a little personal, I wanna find him."

"We will. Just hold up for a moment. Listen. I'm thinking he drove to Rebecca's place and the news says he fled on foot."

Dean picked up on what Alice was saying. "I'm betting it's still parked there."

She snapped her fingers. "Bingo."

Dean thought it over for a moment and clenched his fist tightly. "The thought of him driving my car." He growled.

"Suck it up. Come on."

* * *

The streets were pretty empty around the time they got to Rebecca's neighborhood. No one was around and they could see their goal in sight. The Impala in all its beautiful glory, right under a street lamp like a beacon of hope and heavy artillery.

Dean was beyond relieved to see the shiny coating of the black paint once more. "There she is! Finally, something went right tonight."

Any kind of hope was replaced with flashing blue and red lights with the unmistakable sound of a police siren. A patrol car appeared around the edge and parked right next to the Impala.

Alice's hands shot up and stopped the boys from taking another step "Crap." She hissed and pushed them back into the opposite direction just when yet another patrol car appeared and began to head towards them. They were trapped

Sam looked at his brother. "You go. We'll hold 'em off." They backed up to a fence.

"What are you talking about? They'll catch you."

"They can't hold us."

Alice gave Dean a shove on the back. "Forget about us. Just go! Sam will go to Rebecca's and watch over her. I'll meet you back at the motel and we'll head to the sewers together. Okay?"

Dean nodded and began to scale the fence but stopped when Alice called back to him.

"I mean it! Wait for me!"

"Yeah, yeah!"' He disappeared on the other side just as the patrol cars surrounded Sam and Alice.

* * *

Sam and Alice weren't back yet but Dean couldn't wait any longer. That bastard shifter not only used Alice's form to trick him but is also using his own face to commit crimes he didn't do. This was too personal for him now. "Sorry, Alice." Dean apologized while arming himself with his weapons from the Impala's arsenal.

* * *

Dean was back in the sewers after nightfall, but this time he was alone and armed. It didn't take long either to find its lair with all the lit candles and revolting piles of skin and blood on the floor.

"What the..." He mumbled and looked around the lair that was stone silent. No noise, or anything. The shifter wasn't even here. "Oh, come on...Seriously?" He stomped his foot on the ground and pulled out his phone, having no choice but to call Sam first. He knew Alice would give him an ear-full and he wasn't yet ready for that.

Sam's urgent voice broke through the call "Dean?" He heard his little brother say before he unloaded hell into his eardrum. "Where the hell are you? Didn't Alice tell you not to go to the sewers alone? She just called me saying you weren't there!"

Dean flinched and pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment and waited for Sam's chewing out to end. "Yeah, yeah. You can kick my ass later, but we got a bigger problem."

Sam's voice changed when he heard that. He sounded deeply concerned now. "What do you mean? Are you alright?"

"It ain't here. The bastard's gone."

"What?"

* * *

Alice was pissed. Dean had disobeyed her orders and went hunting for the shifter alone. Then again, she could talk, cause that definitely sounded like something she would do. Hell, she's been hunting solo for two years now and has had reckless moments of just plain stupidity. Still, 'Do as I say and not as I do.'

The sound of the door being unlocked made Alice freeze in her spot and stop sharpening her knife. "Dean?" She called out and waited for a reply.

"Yeah, it's me." Dean walked in, shutting and locking the door behind him. "And I know what you're gonna say and I get it." He legit flinched when she suddenly stabbed the newly sharpened knife into the table.

"You serious?" She jumped up from her chair and fought the ever-growing desire to strangle him. She closed her hands into fists and took in a deep breath to calm her murderous attributes. "Did you kill him?" She may have growled out those words against her better judgment.

Dean shrugged and groaned. "He wasn't there. Hell, I don't even know if he's wearing my face anymore."

Alice cocked a brow and stared at him for a second. She blinked and frowned. "Did you talk to Sam yet?"

"No. Not yet." He shook his head and began to pat around for his phone.

Alice's face contorted up into a scowl and she mumbled a 'dammit' under her breath. She turned her back to Dean just as a wide smile crept to his face. Under the pale light of the motel room...his eyes shifted. The monster lurched forth towards Alice quickly, leaning his arm all the way back before aiming his fist at the back of her head.

* * *

Back at the sewers. Something caught Dean's attention that made his blood run cold. He paid no mind to Sam calling out to him, demanding why he suddenly got all quiet.

"Dean? Dean! What's wrong? Did something happen?" Sam called out, his voice sounding desperate with every plea.

"Did something happen?" Dean reached down to the floor and picked up a picture. It was a new picture of Alice that had her head inside the motel room, looking over her shoulder too. "Sam?"

"What?"

Dean could feel his heart began to speed up. "I think...that bastards going after Alice."

* * *

The shifter sucked in a deep breath when fingers curled around his fist and stopped it dead still. Alice looked over her shoulder at him and squeezed his fist tightly in her outstretched hand. She twisted his arm around and shot her knee up into his elbow and heard a loud CRACK! It was like lightning struck his body and everything went cold than burning hot like a white iron setting fire to his skin. The pain set in fast for him and he quickly yanked his arms away and held his broke elbow that burned, throbbed, electrified him to the slightest touch.

"Son of a..." The shifter took in a shallow breath and fell to his knees, hugging his elbow close to his body while Alice stared down at him.

Her hands moved to her hips and this most chilling and bored look held to her relaxed face. "Come on...I could tell what you were the moment you walked in. If you're gonna impersonate my guy...then make sure you get his mannerisms down first." She cocked a brow. "Thinking that you can trick me with such a stupid set up, it's...it's just offensive really."

The impersonator gave a rumbling growl that came from deep in his lungs. His bone snapped back into place quickly and he charged at Alice, tackling her on top of the bed. All the air evaporated from her body when she was knocked back. His physical strength was definitely not normal for any human. He was a monster after all and can easily strangle her to death if she didn't move fast enough. Alice was becoming lightheaded and her vision was beginning to blur with every passing second with the Dean-shifter's finger around her throat.

The fight wasn't over yet, not even close. Luck was on her side because It was her's and Dean's bed she landed on. Alice wasn't close enough to get her gun but her arm was right by Dean's pillow that she knew had a silver hunting knife under it. She slapped her hand down on the sheets and fumbled around for the knife as her vision started to turn black. The handle of the blade glided across her fingertips and an adrenaline rush shot through her veins like an addictive drug that spring life into her eyes once more. She broke free from his hands and slammed her forehead up into his face. She finally grabbed the knife and lifted it over her head and stabbed it down into his shoulder blade. He screeched like an unholy creature and backed away when his skin began to sizzle from the effects the silver had on him.

Alice felt free once more and the air returned but it burned her lungs. Her face was just as flushed as her neck was that had obvious bruises wrapped around now. "You little..." Alice choked and hacked her intestines up. Her eyes were bloodshot but she didn't feel any pain from her neck because of the adrenaline.

The shifter yanked the blade out from his shoulder and tossed it across the room so she wouldn't get to it. Since he had Dean's memories, he knew that a gun loaded with silver bullets was under her pillow, but a demented and pissed off Alice was between that and his doom. If this Cromwell lady got her hands on that gun then it would all be over.

Alice moved in quick and didn't even get this man time to react properly. It was an all-out brawl with the shifter losing ground to this woman who was able to attack and defend herself at the same time. Her knees shot up into his stomach and she jabbed her hand against his throat. The shifter choked on the very air he breathed when she finally delivered the blow that caused his head to go into a vertigo spiral. Alice spun around to get momentum and struck the hard part of her wedged shoe right below the ear and above the neck of his head. He could no longer hold the weight of his own heavy body and fell limp against the ground. His legs refused to move and he watched hopelessly as Alice walked over to the bed and pulled out the very thing that will give him a free pass to hell...a gun loaded with silver bullets.

"Wait...!" He spat out and held his hand out to stop her. Surprisingly she did stop to listen. "Please..please, Alice." He knew that Alice had strong feelings for Dean, so could she actually pull the trigger on him when he's wearing his face of the man she loved? "You...you don't have to do this, sweetheart...please-"

Her eyes went wide. Alice raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger before he could utter out a single word. The loud banging noise caused a ringing in her head while she silently watched as his body crumbled to the ground.

"Shut up..."

After a moment to make sure he was stone cold dead, Alice walked over to his body and hunched down over it, seeing Dean's necklace he always wore and yanked it off.

The real Dean finally broke down the locked door and busted it off its hinges. "Al-" He stopped when he saw his shifter-counterpart laying dead on the ground with a hole in his head and a gun in Alice's hand. "Holy..." He stumbled back in shock. For a moment, it felt like an out of body experience when he saw the Dean-shifter.

Alice tossed Dean back his necklace and frowned. "He wasn't in the sewers." She said dryly.

Dean was still trying to process the shifter that laid dead on the ground. It wasn't him but just the thought of Alice ruthlessly putting him down like a dog sent a chill up his spine. His stomach twisted a bit when he looked down at his necklace. "Yeah...he wasn't."

* * *

It was the next day after the case and Dean and Alice were already packing up shop and getting ready to hit the road for at least a couple hours. That was something she wasn't looking forward too and was really starting to consider taking her bike back to her family's isolated cabin and rid with the boys if all three of them were gonna stick together for a while.

Alice wasn't out of the clearing yet though with Dean's constantly hounding her about killing the shifter that looked like him.

He frowned and followed Alice."I can't believe you shot me...in the face!"

Alice walked over to her bike. She had a bag slung over her right shoulder and a map in her left hand. "If I had shot you in the face you wouldn't be here now to complain to me about it. I shot a shapeshifter in the face."

"Yeah, but don't you feel bad about it?" He shrugged. "Like the dude was wearing my face."

Alice tossed her bag over the back of the motorcycle and began to strap it down. "No. I didn't feel bad about it. It wasn't you." She folded up the map and stuffed it in her bag. "The shifter pissed me off actually because he was using _your_ face to trick me."

It wasn't like Dean was mad or anything, he was thankful that Alice knew him just enough to notice that the shifter was impersonating him. He wouldn't know what to do if the shifter managed to get the drop on her. In fact, he didn't even want to think about it. Something was still bothering him though.

* * *

_"It's cute though. You look at her when you think she didn't notice, and she looks at you when you don't." She chuckled. "Trust me...she looks at you a lot...It's unfortunate though, cause she won't even give you the time of day to act on those feelings that you both have."_

* * *

"Alice, uh..." He struggled to speak and was even growing a bit nervous. "Back when Sam and I were caught. He...well it was a 'she' at the time...but the shifter said..."

Alice squinted her eyes when Dean began to act very strange. It finally clicked for her. "Oh God. Don't tell me that bastard said something to you. Did he?" Now she was starting to get nervous.

"I don't know why, but she had your memories. Like, she knew the things only the three of us should know."

"What else did she say to you?" Alice frowned and waited for the inevitable.

Dean looked reluctant. He bit down on his lips and looked away for a moment. "She said you wouldn't give me the time of day."

Alice felt small. She wanted the world to open up and swallow her whole, but that was not her fate just yet. Dean...was a man that she admired as well as felt very attracted too, but... "Unfortunately." Having a relationship with anyone was out of the question for her. It was a rule that she had followed for a long time and had never broken it and is not going to break it. Not even for a man like him as much as it pained for her say those words and see the surprised and slight devastation shift in his eyes. He hid it decently well though.

"So you're saying we wouldn't be able to make it work."

"That ain't it, Dean. The one who wouldn't be able to make it work is _me_." Her voice cracked with the overwhelming stress that began to creep up on her.

He looked confused, as a mixture of hurt and slight anger cross his eyes. "The hell is that suppose to mean?"

"I don't trust relationships between hunters to last." Alice shook her head and generally looked sorry which is strange for her to even express. He hadn't seen her look this upset when she told him about Aiden's death. "Let's say we do make it work, then something happens to either you or me. A hunters life is way too short to even have a chance at..." She had to take a moment to breathe. "A normal life."

Dean clenched his hand tightly. He wanted to shout and raise his voice but Alice didn't deserve that. It was because he understood why she made it a rule to not date people. He sucked up his anger and the last of his pride. "An apple pie life, huh."

Alice took in a shallow breath. "This life is all I've know...all I've ever done and what I was born to do...and I'll die one day became of it. You're a great guy, Dean. I can tell that every day I've been with you, but I can't risk a relationship. I can't do it...it's can't be me." Her voice was soft and she was generally trying to let him go easily. Alice reached her hand out to him but he looked away from it. She frowned and placed both hands on his face and force their eyes to meet. She tapped her forehead against his and took a moment of silence with shallow breaths. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."

* * *

They left Rebecca's as quick as they could after learning that she was going to be alright and that Zack, her brother, was going to be released. The cops were now thinking that the taps might have been tampered with and that they're blaming the murder on the Dean-shifter, who is dead as far as they know. It was one reason why they left as quick as they did to now draw attention to the real deal.

Sam noticed that something was strange with his brother and Alice. They both seemed that quiet to each other and even a bit distant. This wasn't like Dean though. He wasn't saying anything, much less a wise-crack as they drove down the roads with Alice in front of them.

"Did something happen?" Sam couldn't help to ask since it was now starting to freak him out. "Well, you know, Alice did shot your doppelganger so I understand why that would freak you out-"

"It ain't that." Dean cut in. He rolled his eyes. "Alice, she... I got rejected."

Sam cocked a brow. "Alice rejected you?"

"Yeah... She said something like 'It can't be me', whatever the hell that means." He slapped his hand against the steering wheel and sighed.

Sam was quite taken back by this and was at a loss for words "So..are you going to give up?"

Dean scoffed and looked at him from the corner of his eyes like he was crazy. "No."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Man, I'm tired. Working nightshift really does hammer my energy to work on Alice's story (I still don't like people enough to work day shift though). Hell, got it done because it was starting to get overdue. I'm pretty sure I might go back in the future and edit this a bit more as I did with 'Wendigo' and 'Death in the Water'. But that's for another day.**

**Aw, poor Dean. (I wouldn't reject him, I'll say that). But that is was Alice grew up to believe. She likes him but doesn't wanna commit to a relationship and just suddenly lose him. She's afraid. ****And yeah. Alice does have a very cold nature and ruthless nature about her. She really doesn't regret killing a shifter that looked like Dean. It really only pissed her off. I will though be exploring her coldness in later chapters and stories. This is only the beginning of a very long journey for Alice and our boys.**

**I always liked the idea of the shifter changing course and going after Alice. He might have figure out that she would be more of a pain in the ass to deal with, little did he truly know that our girl...can kick some serious ass. He didn't even stand a chance. I was pondering the fight scene between Alice and the shifter for a while though and how I was going to write it. I spent a lot of time at work just daydreaming on what I was gonna do. Fights are hard to write (But I still love doing it) and if I learned anything about writing, is that try to keep them short and don't do step by step take on what your characters are doing because that's just boring and doesn't flow well. Write more of the feeling then the fighting is what I say. **

**Anyways, sorry that this was kinda late. But next up will be...Hook Man! Ah...What in the hell am I gonna do for that one...Well, whatever! I'm sure it'll be fine in the end. **


	9. Hook Man Part 1

**HOOK MAN PART 1**

"Your, uh, half-caf, double vanilla latte is getting cold over here, Francis." Dean jokingly called out to his brother who walked back from a payphone.

"Bite me." Sam scoffed and sat down at the table, noticing that Alice wasn't there. "Where's Alice?" He looked around the outdoor cafe crowd and couldn't find their lady hunter friend at all.

Dean picked up his coffee and nudged his head. "She's in the bathroom." He said.

"Still? She's been in there for at least 15 minutes." Sam got up from his seat almost as fast as he sat down and half hurried over to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, Alice stood in front of the mirror and stared at her hideous reflection. Her neck had dark black and purple bruises wrapped around, bloodshot eyes, and a voice that made her sound like she's been smoking for 50 years. Her throat burned a bit but it was bearable, compliments to her last case with dealing with a shapeshifter. That bastard really did a number on her neck.

There was a light knocking at the door and Alice's eyes shifted to the reflection behind her. She knew it was Sam since it was a gentle knock. Dean would pound.

"Alice? Hey, you alright?" he called out with a concerned voice.

Alice unlocked the door and pushed it open slightly for the boys to see her in all her battered glory. She honestly looked like a victim from an abusive relationship with those bruises and bloodshot eyes, the obvious signs of strangulation that the shifter caused.

Dean's face turned grim when he saw the bruises. "Those don't look so good." They darkened last time he saw them

Alice shrugged and spoke in her raspy voice. "Bruises get darker as time goes on. I guess it'll take another month until they finally disappear." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black choker necklace to hide the bruises. "I'm gonna have to wear sunglasses too." Alice pulled her sunglasses off her shirt and stared reluctantly at it.

Dean frowned. "At night too?" He saw her shoulders drop with disappointment.

"Yeah...I'm gonna have to look like a douche bag for a while." She sighed, and though hating it, she slipped the sunglasses on her face and walked out of the bathroom. "Anyways. Any news on John?"

Sam's eye fell while they walked back to their table. "I had 'em check the FBI's Missing Persons Data Base. No John Doe fitting Dad's description."

"Ah huh. Any traffic violations?" She saw Sam shake his head. Alice sighed deeply and sat down. "I'm telling you boys, John doesn't want to be found."

"That's what I been saying too," Dean said while they sat back in their seats. "Anyway, check this out." He shoved the computer in Sam and Alice's direction that had an article on it. "It's a news item out of Planes Courier. Ankeny, Lowa. It's only about a hundred miles from here."

Alice leaned up to read. "'The mutilated body was found near the victim's car, parked on 9 Mile Road.'" She cocked a brow, already interested. "'Authorities are unable to provide a realistic description of the killer. The sole eyewitness, whose name had been withheld, is quoted as saying the attacker was invisible.'"

Sam was skeptical. "It could be nothing. One freaked-out witness who didn't see anything. Doesn't mean it's the Invisible Man.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Here we go..." she mumbled. "It could still be something and I don't wanna figure it out when another body gets found in the same area in the same exact way. It could be nothing, yes, but I would rather confirm it myself."

Sam slunk back in his chair. "So what do you wanna do?"

"We got two vehicles. Dean and I can go and check it out while you look for John, or..." She ignored the charming grin Dean was giving her. "Or you and Dean stay behind, and I still go."

Sam stared at her unmoving...sunglasses before leaning his head back. He owes her this much since it felt like he dragged her into that St. Louis case and that's how she got hurt. Either way, it didn't sit right with him if he said no. "Don't say I never do anything for you." He mumbled and saw her usually cocky grin rise to her lips.

Alice smirked and leaned back in her chair, black coffee of victory in her hand. Dean looked slightly disappointed that he wouldn't get to do this case alone with her.

* * *

The college lifestyle was something that neither her nor Aiden ever did. Then again, she can't even imagine herself truly fitting in with the crowd of young adults, when in high school, she and her brother were treated like circus freaks. There were times she recalls having a bet with her idiot sibling in how long they can go without totally kicking the crap out of bullies that harassed them daily. Needless to say, she lost the bet first but Aiden was quick to follow up too.

It was basically a college town by the looks of it with young adults waltzing around the campus, most of which were out working on their cars in the burning sun. The Impala's shiny black paint job made these cars look like a piece of crap honestly when Alice and the boys pulled up and parked. The kids looked up from their work and gave the new faces a confused stare, especially Alice who stuck out like a sore thump with her bright red Ducati and heels.

"One more time, why are we here?" Sam whispered to Dean as they walked the streets.

"Victim lived here." He said and walked up to the some of the guys fixing a car. "Nice wheels." They were only given strange looks. "We're your fraternity brothers and sorority sis. From Ohio. We're new in town. Transfers looking for a place to stay."

* * *

They were led through the fraternity doors and up to the doorframe of an open room. Inside was a frat boy...completely covered in purple paint from the waist up. Alice couldn't have been more confused and mildly disturbed by this guy standing in front of her. She was now thankful that she wasn't part of this lifestyle growing up with her brother, though she can see Aiden doing this sort of thing for some reason. Probably to annoy her and get a reaction (Like right now).

The frat boy stared at them with a raised eyebrow. "Who are you?"

"We're your new friends." Dean cocked a grin and they walked in.

The frat boy held up a brush and a paint can to Dean. "Do me a favor? Get my back."

Dean quickly gestured to Alice beside him. "She's the artists. The things she can do with a brush." Talk about changing the word 'Gun' to 'Brush'.

Alice narrowed her striking blue eyes that could kill a man if they weren't being covered by her sunglasses. She reluctantly took the brush and bucket and started to paint the frat boy's back, ignoring her skin crawling like ants.

Dean was grateful that he couldn't see Alice's eyes cause he knows she was glaring at him. He sat down and picked up a magazine. "So," he stared at the name on the front page. "Murph. is it true?"

"What?"

"We heard one of the guys around here got killed last week."

Murph's face fell. "Yeah."

Sam leaned against the door frame. "What happened?"

"They're saying some psycho with a knife. Maybe a drifter passing through. Rich was a good guy."

Alice bit down on her lip. "Was he with someone?" she asked.

The frat boys scoffed. "Not just somebody. Lori Sorensen," he spoke the name in high regards.

"Who's Lori Sorensen?" Dean asked.

"Lori's a freshman. She's a local. Super hot. And get this: she's a reverend's daughter."

Dean slowly nodded. "You wouldn't happen to know which church, would ya?" He gestured his hand up. "Hey sweetheart, you missed a...on the back there-"

"Shut up." Alice's raspy growl cut him off at the knees. Dean gave her a charming grin that only seemed to irritate her more.

* * *

They walked into the church in the middle of a memorial for the murdered frat boy. The door slammed loudly and drew the attention of everyone inside to them. Alice and Dean gave Sam a 'what the hell' manner before they quickly took their seat, letting Rev Sorensen continue with his usual sermon.

"As a community, and as a family. The loss of a young person is particularly tragic. A life unlived is the saddest passings."

Alice looked at the front of the row of seats and saw a woman looking back at them. She was young and attractive, so both her and Sam assumed that she was Lori, the only witness to the crime. Her eyes looked a bit hollow and her face held deep regret, which caught Alice's attention and took note of it.

"So, please, let us pray. For peace, for guidance, and for the power to protect our children."

Everyone lowered their head, all except Dean and Alice. Sam elbowed his brother which caused him to nudge Alice as well. They both rolled their eyes and lowered their heads.

* * *

The streets quickly flooded with church folks as they exited the building after the memorial. Lori walked out with her roommate Taylor.

"I can't. it's Sunday night." Lori apologized as they stepped down the stairs.

"It's just us girls. We're gonna do tequila shots and watch reality bits." she tried to tempt her.

"My dad makes dinner every Sunday night."

"Come on, Lori. I know this had been hard, but you are allowed to have fun."

Lori gave a weak smile. "I'll try."

Taylor rolled her eyes before wrapping her arms around her. "Ok."

Lori watched Taylor walked back to the doors just as Sam, Dean, and Alice walked up to her.

"Are you Lori?" Sam asked.

"Yeah." Lori turned to greet them.

"My name is Sam. This is my brother, Dean and my friend, Alice."

Dean waved. "Hi."

Alice just gave a subtle nod of acknowledgment. "We just transferred here to the university," she said.

Lori gave a sheepish smile. "I saw you inside...well, I saw the sunglasses first but..."

She could tell one thing. Lori was definitely a reverend's daughter and probably thought that Alice wearing sunglasses inside was disrespectful. Well...it was but she really didn't feel like getting shifty looks from everyone with her bloodshot eyes and bruises around her neck. People would probably assume that it was Sam or Dean who caused it.

"We don't wanna bother you. We just heard about what happened and..." Sam began.

"We wanted to say how sorry we were," Dean said.

"I kind of know what you're going through. I-I saw someone...get hurt once. It's something you don't forget."

Lori gave a slight nod and looked to see her father walking up to them. "Dad, um, this is Sam, Dean, and Alice. They're new students."

Dean shook Rev Sorensen's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. I must say, that was an inspiring sermon."

The Reverend smiled. "Thank you very much. It's nice to find your people who are open to the Lord's message.

Dean chuckled and began to lead the father away so Alice and Sam could talk to Lori alone. "Listen, uh, we're new in town, actually..."

Sam waited until they were out of earshot before speaking. "What are the police saying, really." he stuck his hands into his pocket and they began to walk.

Lori shrugged. "Well, they don't have a lot to go on. I think they blame me for that."

Alice lifted a brow. "Why do you say that? You gave your statement, didn't you?"

"My story. I was scared, I guess I was seeing things." she moped before Alice stopped her by stepping in front.

"Hey...there are things in this world that you can't explain, I know, but that doesn't mean it's not real."

Lori smiled slightly with Alice's confident and strong word and did, in fact, feel a bit better.

* * *

They took the time to go to the local library after talking to Lori and getting her side of the story.

"So you believe her?" Dean asked while walking past the aisle of books and records.

"I do." Sam nodded.

"Yeah, I think she's hot, too." Dean looked over to Alice to see if he got a reaction out of her but failed to see it because of the sunglasses. He rolled his eyes. "So what's her story?"

Alice spoke up. "She said she heard scratching on the roof. Found a bloody body suspended upside down over the car."

Dean paused and stepped into an aisle to get some privacy. "Wait, the body suspended? That sounds like the-"

"Yeah, we know, the Hook Man legend," Sam said grimly.

Dean felt his stomach began to drop. "That's one of the most famous urban legends ever. You don't think we're dealing with _the _Hook Man."

Alice shrugged. "Every urban legend has a source. A place where it all began. This one is no different from the Bloody Mary legend."

"Yeah, but what about the phantom scratches and the tires punctured and the invisible killer?"

"I don't think we're dealing with a physical man...but a spirit instead," she said ominously with a drop in her raspy voice.

* * *

Sam and Dean waited patiently for Alice to come back with the arrest records. She walked up to them with two large boxes with her. One over her shoulder and the other under her arm.

"I got all the arrest records going back to 1851." She dropped the heavy things in front of them with dust flying in the air.

Dean coughed and waved the dust away. "So, this is how you spend four years of your life, huh?" he said to Sam.

"Welcome to higher education," Sam said and cracked open the boxes

* * *

A couple of hours have already passed and their eyes were practically swimming in words and dust. Alice even took off her sunglasses and ignored all the looks she was given.

"Hey, check this out," Sam called out to them. Dean and Alice got up and looked at what Sam was reading. "A preacher named Jacob Karns was arrested for murder. Looks like he was so angry over the red light district in town that one night he killed 13 prostitutes. Uh, right here. 'some of the deceased were found in their bed, sheets soaked with blood others suspended upstairs down the limbs of trees as a warning against the sins of the flesh.'"

Alice narrowed her eyes and pulled out a piece of paper. "Look at the murder weapon." she pointed.

"Looks like the preacher lost his hand in an accident. Had it replaced with a silver hook." Dean said.

Alice nodded slowly. "And look where it all happened." she sighed. "9 mile Road."

"Same place where that frat boy was killed." Sam realized.

Dean laughed. "Nice job, Dr. Venkmen. Let's check it out."

* * *

They waited for the cover of nightfall to do their ghostbusting. Dean popped open the trunk and handed Sam a riffle.

"If it is a spirit, as Alice said, buckshots won't do much good." Sam frowned.

"Yeah, rock salt." Dean passed a couple of cartridges of rock salt to him.

"Huh. Salt being a spirit deterrent."

"Yeah. It won't kill 'em, but it'll slow 'em down." he took out a flashlight for Alice and a coil of rope for him before shutting the trunk.

Alice snickered. "Where did you learn that trick? From John?"

Dean winked at her. "You don't have to be a college graduate or a Cromwell to be a genius."

They walked through the thick brush of trees for a while until the unmistakable sound of snapping branches caught their attention and they froze.

"Over here," Dean whispered.

Sam aimed his gun up and cocked it, ready to pull the trigger when a figure emerged from behind the trees. The sheriff with his own gun out, pointing it at Alice and the boys.

"Put the gun down now!" He barked orders at them. "Now! Put your hands behind your head."

Dean immediately raised his hands and elbowed Alice to do the same. "W-w-wait, okay, okay!"

"Now get down on your knees. Come on, do it." He ordered and they were forced down. "Now get down on your bellies. Come on, do it!"

Dean groaned when him, Sam and Alice were forced to lay on the cold ground. "He had the gun," he complained.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**And here we go with the Hook Man legend part 1. I really do prefer to do the episodes in three parts. It's easier to edit and post. Anyway, I really hope you enjoying Alice's story with the boys so far. I'm trying to give her more time with Sam because I want them to have a good relationship too, as she does with Dean.**


	10. Hook Man Part 2

**HOOK MAN PART 2**

It was bright and early when they strolled out of the Sheriff's Department. They were free men once more and were let out the next morning after Dean worked his magic and talked the sheriff down into letting them go.

"Saved your ass!" Dean said, walking out in the streets with Alice on his right and Sam on his left. "Talked the sheriff down to a fine. Dude, I am Matlock."

"But how?" Sam asked his brother since the situation there were found in..would be a bit hard to explain. With the shotgun, rope, and the snooping around in the middle of the night after a gruesome murder, Sam didn't understand how they were able to walk free without Alice having to break them out.

"I told him you were a dumbass pledge and that we were hazing you."

"What about the shotgun?"

"I said that you were hunting for ghosts and the spirits were repelled by rock salt. You know, typical Hell Week prank."

Alice laughed a bit and pulled out her sunglasses once more to cover her bloodshot eyes. "Ah huh. They were kinda pressuring me about my bruises and eyes, so...what did you say to save your ass from potential assault charges?"

Dean grinned with his genius scheme. "I told him that you had dumbass friends, who had dumbass ideas"

She cocked a brow. "And it worked?"

"Sure looked like it." Dean turned his head around and suddenly saw several sheriffs running out of the station, getting into their cars and speeding away. They looked like they were in a hurry and judging by the sirens, it was serious.

"What the..." Alice watched as they took off. She exchanged a confused look with the boys.

* * *

Police cars surrounded Lori's sorority building and blocked it off to the growing crowd of curious people. A woman had died, Lori's roommate Taylor. Lori was sat on the back of a parked ambulance and was wrapped up in a blanket. She was pale and her eyes looked a bit sunken in with sleep deprivation, having to have woken up to Taylor's dead body a few feet beside her. Cold, motionless, pale and covered in blood from having her throat cut open during the night.

Lori lifted her head and saw the shiny black paint job from the Impala glimmering in the sun as it slowly drove by. She saw Sam and Dean staring out the window at the building with a suspicious look in their eyes. They didn't stop and just drove off the site.

The Impala rolled around the back of the building to another street. It didn't have cops on it and they saw Alice waiting for them by the curb with her bike. She made a gesturing motion with her head and they quickly parked the Impala behind her. They got out and followed Alice through the back way to the building.

"Why would the Hook Man come here? This is a long way from 9 Mile Road." Sam said.

"Maybe it's about something else," Dean said. Alice suddenly grabbed him and Sam, shoving them aside when two sorority girls walked out of the side entrance of the building. "Dude, sorority girls. Think we'll see a naked pillow fight?" he grinned. Dean turned around and saw Sam helping Alice up on the balcony.

Alice pulled herself up and slowly walked over to the unlocked window. Grabbing the window frame, she leaped inside and the boys followed her in headfirst, falling on top of each other and hissing.

"Oh, sorry!" Dean apologized for falling on his brother.

"Be quiet!"

"You be quiet!"

"You be quiet!"

"Will you two shut up!" Alice hissed.

They waited in silence while Alice peeked her head through the door as the last sheriff left the room and walked down the stairs. They stepped into the bedroom once everyone was gone and finally saw the damaged the Hook Man did. Taylor's body was gone but large puddles of blood were left behind, and on the wall beside her bed were words carved into the drywall. The words were painted red and looked like they were scraped in with a hook.

"_'Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light.'_" Sam read the words. "Isn't that?"

"Yeah, just like the legend," Alice said.

"That's classic Hook Man all right." Dean tapped his nose. "It's definitely a spirit."

"Yeah, I've never smelled ozone this stong before," Sam grimaced.

Alice hunched down in front of the wall and stared at the words for a moment when something caught her eyes. A symbol was carved at the bottom of the gruesome message. "Sam, Dean," she called out. "Do you recognize this symbol?"

* * *

They did, in fact, recognize the symbol that was scraped at the bottom of the message. Alice found it during their research and brought it out with a piece of paper.

Alice held it up for them to see. "Looks like it is the spirit of Jacob Karns," She was sure now if there was any doubt before.

"All right, let's find the dude's grave, salt and burn the bones, and put him down," Dean said.

"Not so fast," Alice folded the paper back up. "It's said that after the execution, Karns was laid to rest in an Old North Cemetery. In an unmarked grave."

His face befell with annoyance. "Super."

"Ok." Sam began. "So we know it's Jacob Karns. But we still don't know where he'll manifest next. Or why." He could begin to see the bothersome side of this.

A thought crossed Dean's mind. "I'll take a wild guess about why. I think Alice's little friend Lori has something to do with this."

* * *

Alice shuffled awkwardly through a college party of blinding lights, intoxicating smells of booze, and stupid and drunk kids the knocked into her constantly. She groaned loudly and finally just bulldozed her way through and didn't care about the complaints she got from the partygoers. She found Sam's tall figure standing above everyone else and walked up to him and Dean.

"Ugh..." Alice groaned with annoyance and felt her anti-socialness starting to peek through. "God, I hate college parties. They're so damn obnoxious."

Dean though looked like he was having the time of his life, being surrounded by booze and women. "What are you talking about? This college thing is awesome. Sammy, you've been holding out on me."

Sam rolled his eyes. "It's Sam, and this wasn't really my experience."

"Let me guess. Libraries, studying, straight A's." Sam nodded. "What a geek. Speaking of geeks though, sweetheart, did you do your homework?"

Alice nodded and guided them away from the crowd. "You know how the Hook Man has been tied up to Lori this whole time?" She pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper from the inside of her leather jacket. "I got a hunch on why." She showed it to them.

Dean read it out. "'1932. Clergyman arrested for murder. 1969. Seminnariam held in hippie rampage.'"

"There's a pattern. In both cases, the suspect was a man of religion who openly preached against immorality. He then found himself wanted for killings he claimed were the works of an invisible force. The killings were carried out with a sharp instrument."

"What's the connection to Lori?"

"A man of religion? Who openly preaches against immorality? Does that sound like someone to you." Dean slowly began to understand what Alice was talking about.

"Reverend Sorensen. You think he's summoning the spirit?"

She nods. "Yeah, but this time he's just trying to save his daughter." She rolled the paper back up. "Poltergeist don't have to haunt a place. It can be a person too."

"So the spirit latches onto the reverend's repressed emotions, feeds off them, yeah, okay."

"Without the reverend ever knowing about it," Sam said. "So what's the plan?"

"I'll go keep an eye on Lori tonight while you and Dean find that unmarked grave, okay?" Alice saw Dean eyeing an attractive blonde at the pool table. "Dean." She snapped her fingers to get his attention back.

"Wha-What?" He blinked.

"Sam, you, grave. Me, Lori, watch. You understand?"

Dean nodded his head, though he looked reluctant to leave the party. "Yeah."

* * *

Sam and Dean went off to find the grave while Alice stayed behind to watch over Lori's house. She strolled the dark streets near the house and tried her best to not look like a creep with sunglasses on in the middle of the night. She sighed and pulled them off actually. It was dark outside and wearing them only made it harder to see. No one was around anyway so she saw no harm.

Alice looked up at the window and saw Lori and her dad arguing about something. It was pretty loud too since she could hear them from all the way outside. It wasn't long till they both walked away from each other and shut off the lights.

* * *

It didn't take long to find the grave since it had the same symbol on it like the one back at Lori's sorority. Dean worked up a sweat on digging up the grave while Sam shined a light down on him.

"Next time..." Dean had to take a moment to breathe. "I'm going with Alice to watch the cute girl's house."

"Just hurry up and dig," Sam said but Dean shot him an annoyed look.

Dean finally hit the wooden coffin below and broke it up till they saw the dried up skeletal remains of the old preacher. "Hello, preacher." Dean tossed his shovel aside and was helped out of the hole by Sam.

They get to work on salting up the bones as much as possible. They soaked them with lighter fluid until they were practically swimming in fluid and salt. Sam grimaced at the sight while Dean lit a match and tossed it upon the remains. The flames covered the old bones and burned them up till there was nothing left but ash.

* * *

Alice sat down on a bench near the house and stretched her legs out. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back to relax when she heard the distinct sound of footsteps behind her. She felt her muscles clench up and slowly move down to her bag that had a shotgun in it. Alice snapped her head around to see who it was but sighed when it was only Lori coming up behind her.

"Don't sneak up on people like that. God knows what'll happen." Alice pulled her sunglasses out of her shirt and placed them back on. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes once more

Lori, very meekly sat down beside her. "Sorry. I, uh, saw you upstairs. What are you doing here?"

"Was taking a walk when I heard the yelling. I got a bit concerned and decided to stick around for a couple of minutes to make sure everything was fine." She opened a single eye and looked at her. "Everything alright?"

Lori appreciated the concern but could only smile weakly. "Not really. I'm guessing you already know what happened to Taylor. If I were you...I would run away from me as fast as you can."

Alice laughed a bit at that. "If you were me then you wouldn't." She hunched over and crossed her fingers. "Why would you say something like that anyway?"

"It's like I'm cursed or something. People around me keep dying."

She cocked a brow cause couldn't deny that, but in a way, Alice knew that she could relate to those feelings. "I understand ya." She could feel her heart taking a dip as her body grew cold for some reason.

Lori's voice began to become croaked. "No one will talk to me anymore. Except you. The sheriff thinks I'm a suspect. And you know what my dad is saying? Pray. Have faith. What does he know about faith."

That got her attention. "What are you talking about?"

"He's seeing a woman. A married woman. I just found out. She comes to our church with her husband. I know her kids. And he tells me about religion? About morality? It's like, on one hand, you know, just do what you want and be happy. But he taught me, raise me to believe that if you do something wrong you will get punished. I just don't know what to do anymore." she said, her eyes becoming glassy from tears and pent up stress.

Alice sighed deeply and leaned back on the bench, running her hands through her hair. This was a bit more complicated then she thought. She was beginning to second-guess everything now, but what really surprised her is what Lori said next.

"I...kinda wish I was more like you."

Alice froze and slowly cranked her head over to her. "Excuse me?"

"I wish I was more like you," she said sheepishly. "You just strike me as someone...who doesn't let anything bother you, and I admire that." She lowered her head to hide a smile. "And don't tell me, dressed like that, that you don't ride a motorcycle."

Alice looked away and began to snicker. "I'm really just a biker punk, that's all."

"It must be freeing, huh? And I bet you have a better relationship with your family then I do mine."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Her face slowly began to fall. "My family's, uh...no longer here." Alice could see Lori's eyes grow wide.

"I didn't...I..." she struggled to get the right words out but she was too frazzled to say anything.

"Don't." Alice held her hand up to stop her. "Just don't. I've heard it way too many times already and I don't wanna be reminded of it every time."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"No...no you wouldn't. I don't talk about it often because...it was a dark time in my life, and right now it's still..." Alice bit down on her lips and huffed. "What I wanna say is this...be happy with the family you have left. Don't be mad at your dad forever because of a stupidass decision he made. If something were to happen to him then...what would the last words you spoke to him be?"

Lori clenched her hands tightly and dropped her head. She was silenced with only a few words that truly did dig deep into her heart. She hesitated to speak for a moment but curiosity got the better of her. "What...What was your dad like?"

Various emotions crossed Alice's eyes in a fraction of a second but she covered it up with a laugh and a smile. "He was a dumbass too. But a good guy from what I can remember."

Lori smiled and laughed along with her. She giggled, and for a moment it truly felt like things were back to normal. She doesn't remember the last time she laughed like this. The moment was ruined though went she heard her dad suddenly calling out to her.

"Lori?" Reverend Sorensen poked his head outside and saw his daughter sitting on the bench with Alice. "Come inside, please." he pleaded.

Alice patted Lori on the back. "You should go."

Lori hesitated at first but got up. "Sure."

Alice smiled slightly and looked back to reverend Sorensen. She suddenly saw a black mist appear behind him that took the shape of a man with a silver hook. Alice felt her lungs burning like fire when the air got sucked out. She watched him take his hook and drive it deep in the unexpected reverend. Sorensen screamed out in pain as the door slammed shut.

"Dad?!" Lori screamed in shock.

"Son of a-" Alice reached into her back and pulled out the shotgun. She spun it around and cocked it before heading for the door in a mad dash.

Alice pushed open the front door and ran inside the house but didn't see Lori's father at all. She whipped her head around and heard the sound of pleating screams coming upstairs. She sprinted up the stairs and came to a door at the end of the hall that the voice was coming from. Alice practically broke the hinges off the door when she kicked it open and saw the Hook Man standing above Sorensen. His bloody hook held up in the air.

"No! No, no!" Sorensen pleated.

Alice didn't wast another second and pointed her shotgun up and pulled the trigger. Buckshots splattered out from the smoking barrel and ripped right through the spirits body. He disappeared on impact and the shots struck the wall.

"Dad! Dad!" Lori burst into the bedroom and ran to her father's side. "Okay. It's ok, Dad. It's ok. It's ok."

Alice lifted her shotgun up and saw the smoke coming off the barrel. She frowned down at the injured reverend, pondering on what just happened and why the Hook Man suddenly attacked him. "It's not alright..." she said, leaning her shotgun against her shoulder.


	11. Hook Man Part 3

**HOOK MAN PART 3**

Alice stood in silence and leaned against the door frame that leads into Reverend Sorensen's hospital room. He was still alive but badly injured by the hook the impaled into his shoulder. Lori hasn't left his side since the moment after the attack and probably wasn't going to leave the hospital for a while. The thing that still troubled Alice was why the Hook Man suddenly went after Lori's dad. She figured that he was the one controlling the thing...but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

After hearing about the attack, the sheriff came down from the station and was taking a statement from Alice. "And you saw him too?" he asked and gave her a suspicious eyebrow.

Alice scoffed and luckily her eyes were hidden by her sunglasses. "Yeah. I saw him take a freaking meat hook and sink it into the Rev's shoulder," she sarcastically said. "Lori and I were just talking when her dad came out, that's when the man appeared."

"Have you ever seen him before?" the sheriff asked.

"Nah." Alice shook her head.

He wrote everything down on a notepad but was still highly suspicious about her involvement in the case. "Miss, it seems every time I turn around, I'm seeing you." He didn't bother to hide his doubts, though Alice didn't seem to care for them.

"Yeah, I know right. Small world." She patted the sheriff on the back and walked away from him before he could utter another word to try and accuse her of the crime.

* * *

Alice pushed open the double doors of the hospital and out into the clouded outside lights. Her eyes immediately fell upon the Impala's glossy black paint-job that shimmered under the sun. The boys were standing beside it too and were waiting for her to come out.

Dean heard the familiar sound of clicking heels that strangely brought him a sensation of comfort when he heard them. He was grateful that she was alright, but was still confused about what happened last night. "Alice, what the hell happened?" he said and stood by when Alice walked over to them.

"What the hell happened? What happened on your side?" Alice instantly shot right back. "The freaking Hook Man about Leatherface'd Lori's dad. Didn't you and Sam burn his bones?"

"What are you talking about, I did. You sure its the spirit of Jacob Karns?" Dean defended himself.

"Sure as hell looked like him!" Alice raised her voice and stopped. She looked around to make sure no one was in ear-shot to hear her rants.

"So the spirit isn't latching on to the reverend." Sam figured and huffed with frustration.

Alice groaned heavily and tried to calm her murderous intend to just strangle the boys. "Okay, okay. So...I think it's latching onto Lori. Last night she found out her father is having an affair with a married woman."

"So what?" Dean said.

"She's upset about it, about the immorality of it. She told me she was raised to believe that if you do something wrong, you get punished."

Sam shook his head and was beginning to understand. It was all now starting to make sense for him. "Right, so Rich comes on too strong, Taylor tries to make her into a party girl, Dad has an affair."

"Remind me not to piss this girl off." Dean frowned. "But we burned those bones, burned them in salt, why didn't that stop him?"

"Did you get the hook?" Alice asked and the boys just stared at her, baffled.

"Hook?" they said at the same time, all while having a deer-in-the-headlights-look.

Alice could have straight-up murdered them right there and then with how wide and deranged her eyes became. She stretched her arms out to Dean in a strangling motion but stopped when he jumped out of reach. She was still shaking when she took a deep breath, laughing a bit from frustration. "Listen...the hook was the murder weapon, and in a way, it was a part of him. Like the bones, the hook is a source of his power," she said very slowly. "We gotta find that hook."

* * *

Research had always been the most taxing thing about being a Hunter, but Alice suddenly had a new fire burning inside her and has gone into overdrive mode to try and find where that dang hook ended up in after all these years. She had poured through more books in the last two hours then the boys did in four. Dean and Sam knew she was agitated, but not at them. Alice was just wanting to stop the Hook Man as quick as possible so no one else would get hurt.

Dean tore his eyes away from his friend and back at the book in front of him. "Here's something, I think," he called out and took the pen cap out of his mouth that he was chewing on.

Alice picked her feet up and pushed off the table, rolling over to his side. "A logbook?" she asked.

"Iowa State Penitentiary. Karns, Jacob. Personal affects: disposition thereof," he read.

"Did it mention the hook?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, maybe. Upon execution, all earthly items shall be remanded to the prisoner's house of worship. St. Barnabas Church."

"Isn't that where Lori's father preaches?"

Alice nodded. "Yeah, and where she lives."

"Maybe that's why the Hook Man has been haunting reverends and reverends' daughters for the past 200 years," Dean stated.

She frowned since something still wasn't adding up to her. "Yeah, but...wouldn't someone would have noticed a bloodstained, silver-handled hook just laying about?" Alice got up from her rolling chair. "I'll be right back. Gonna check the church records," she said and jogged off down the long aisles of books.

* * *

About an hour or two later, Alice came back with and an old leather book full of dust and wrinkled brown pages. She also had a grim look on her face when she slammed it down on the table for the boys to look at. Dean never liked it when she had that look, it usually always meant more trouble for them.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked and rubbed her back, feeling it tense up under his hand.

Alice rubbed her tired eyes and sat down on the arm of the chair Dean was sitting on. She was exhausted, he knew it and couldn't blame her. She had been white-knuckling it for over fifteen hours so far. "So..." she began. "In 1862 the church received a silver-handled hook from the state penitentiary. But the problem is..." She looked over to Sam and waited for him to find what she did.

Sam stared down at the book and opened it up to the page that Alice labeled. He looked through the long list when his face suddenly fell. His eyes scanned over the word that totally shut him down. "Reforged," he sighed and leaned back in his chair. "They made it into something else."

* * *

The St. Barnabas church actually had quite an eerie feel to it late at night. The tall staple of the church made the shadow drag far across the parking lot and made the cross look like a demonic hand reaching out to grab your leg. It gave Alice a bad feeling and she purposely stepped to the side when the moonlight made the shadow stretch by her.

Dean noticed Alice's discomfort and laughed a bit since it was so unlike her. "What, you scared?"

Alice gave him a side-eye. "You got no right to say that to me when you death gripped my hand during a plane ride, remember?" Alice shot right back and Dean instantly shut down at her remark. "Okay. Listen, we're not taking any chances. Anything silver goes in the fire."

Sam nodded. "I agree, so, Lori's still at the hospital. We'll have to break in."

"Alright, take your pick," Dean offered.

"I'll take the house, " said Sam.

"Ok." They began to go their separate ways when Dean suddenly called back to his brother. "Hey." Sam stopped and saw his cheezy grin. "Stay out of her underwear drawer."

Sam rolled his eyes and turned back around, heading in the direction of Lori's house, while Dean jogged to catch up to Alice.

* * *

Alice and Dean had two bags full of silver they found around the church and were beginning to toss them all in the furnace down in the basement. Alice made sure that everything they tossed in was melting, not taking any chances with how small their window for this case was. She had a bad feeling that things would only get worse if they drag out. This job had to be done tonight.

Dean turned back to the stairs and saw Sam hurrying down with a bag full of things he found in Lori's house.

"I got everything that even looked silver," Sam said and passed the bag on to Alice's open hands.

They stopped mid-toss when the floor above them began to creak. Alice looked up and saw dust falling through the cracks of the ceiling and knew someone was up there. Dean gave a gesture for Sam to keep throwing and tossed a shotgun to Alice. They hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible to not alert the intruder. Alice slowly opened the door and peeked through it but was taken aback when she saw Lori. She was sitting at the pew and was crying very softly. Alice's face fell a bit and she looked back to Dean. She lifted her thump and pointed back down the stairs, silently telling him that she would handle it and for him and Sam to keep burning. Dean nodded and headed back down.

Alice very calmly walked up behind Lori and quickly hid her gun in the row behind her. She leaned against the edge and crossed her arms. "What are you doing here?" she spoke up and actually made Lori jump. She must have been so lost in her own world that she didn't hear the heels clicking against the wooden floorboard.

Lori turned her head. Her skin was flushed and her eyes were puffy and red. "Alice?" she spoke in a croaked voice.

Alice felt her heart ache for the poor girl. "Shouldn't you be at the hospital?" she cocked a brow when Lori shook her head shyly. "What's going on?"

"I've been trying to understand what's been happening. Why? Now I know so I'm praying for forgiveness."

This made her confused. "What do you have to be forgiven for?"

"Don't you see? I'm to blame for all this. I've read in the Bible about avenging angels-"

"He's no angel." Alice cut in firmly. She didn't like where Lori was taking this and began to look around nervously. Hoping to _not_ catch a glimpse of a silver hook lurking in the shadows. "Trust me."

Lori's lips quivered. "I was so angry at my father. Part of me wanted him punished. And then he came the punished him."

Alice shook her head. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it is. I don't know how, but it is. I killed Ritch. Taylor, too. I nearly killed my father."

Alice felt a chill run down her spine when a sound of something sharp rang in the air. She snapped her head around and saw nothing. She quickly moved in front of Lori and grabbed her by her shoulders, shaking her a bit to grasp her full attention. "Lori. Listen to me. Whatever it was, whoever it was. This was not your fault. None of it."

Lori stared at her in silence. "But it was," she breathed, speaking in a broken voice of utter heartbreak.

A strong gust of wind suddenly blew out the candles and Alice's ears perked up when she heard something moving around, unnoticed by their eyes. The air noticeably became cooler and her skin was crawling with chill bumps. She knew something was there but still couldn't see it, which made her brain go into haywire mode.

"It's here," she muttered and grabbed Lori by her upper arm. "Get up, now. I gotta get you out of here," she spoke coldly and tossed her sunglasses aside.

"Alice? What's wrong?" Lori asked and saw her reach for her shotgun. "What's going on?"

"I don't have time to explain. Come on." Alice cocked her shotgun.

She dragged Lori by her hand to the front of the church where the door was and grabbed the doorknob. She ripped it wide open but had all the air get sucked from her lungs when she saw the tall and black-clad figure of the Hook Man standing in front of them, looming ominously with a silver hook. Lori shrieked and Alice's finger squeezed the trigger of her gun on reflex, ripping salt pellets right through his spiritual body. He disappeared instantly.

"You have got to be kidding me." Alice huffed and popped open her gun. She pulled out the smoking casings to quickly reload. "Back door. Now!" she ordered in a rush.

They hurried through the church to the back rooms, just when Alice began to hear the sound of heavy boots behind her. Her heart dropped and she literally pushed Lori into the room, slamming the door behind them just when the silver hook slammed against the glass, shattering it. The hunter turned around and had to crank her head to look up at the dark figure that was dripping with menace and murder. His face was obscured by the wide-brimmed hat on his face and he wore a long trench coat that was worn down with age. The most prominent trait though was a razer sharp, twisted hook for a hand.

"Stay back!" Alice shouted back to Lori.

Alice ducked down away from the Hook Man that tried to make a swat at her with his razor hook. It struck against the wall and chipped away at the drywall and wood. She looked back up and was bewildered when she saw that he wasn't there anymore. He disappeared once more.

"Oh, my God!" Lori covered her mouth with her hand. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know-" Alice's words were cut off when she felt a strong force on the back of her coat. A gasp escaped her lips when she was abruptly flung across the air by an invisible force.

"Alice!" Lori shrieked and saw Alice crash and slide across the floor. She ran out of the backroom and over to her. "Are you okay?"

Alice bit down on her lips and rolled onto her back. Her lungs burned when the air began to return but through her hazy eyes, she saw the Hook Man towering over an unexpected Lori. "Down!" Alice swept her legs across Lori's and knocked her on the ground to avoid the impending doom from the hook.

Dean finally came running up the stairs after hearing the first gunshot and saw the Hook Man looming above Alice and Lori. "Alice! Stay down!" he warned and shot at the spirit that disappeared.

Sam ran out after his brother. "You guys alright?" he jogged over to them to help the girls up. Lori was scared stiff but Alice mostly looked pissed and confused.

"You freaking kidding me?" Alice held her throbbing head that smacked against the floor when she was thrown. "I thought we got all the silver."

"So did I," Dean said.

"Then why the hell is he still here?"

"Well, maybe we missed something."

Sam helped Lori up and noticed that around her neck was a silver chain and cross. "Lori, where did you get that chain?"

"My father gave it to me," she answered, a bit confused.

"Where'd your father get it?" Dean asked.

"He said it was a church heirloom, he gave it to me when I started school."

"Is it silver?!" Sam shouted since they were running out time. It won't be long soon before the Hook Man returned.

"Yes!"

Alice reached over to her necklace and pulled it off. "This had better be it." She was about to hand it over to Dean when they both froze.

An invisible force began to scrape a long line across the wall behind them. The sound was absolutely haunting and made their bodies turn to ice. Alice and Dean slowly looked over and watched as the line moved closer and closer, chipping off the wall as it went.

Alice slapped the chain into Dean's chest and didn't take her eyes off the wall. "One minute. That's all we need," she muttered lowly. "Go, go, go!"

"Got it." Dean pushed Sam ahead of him and gave one last look back to Alice before the brothers disappeared down the stairs to burn the chain.

The scraping stopped and started up again on the ceiling. Alice raised her shotgun and pointed it up and pulled the trigger. The salt pellets ripped open the drywall but it finally stopped with its intimidating tactic. Alice tried to reload and looked away, catching a silver glimpse from the corner of her eye. She instinctively brought her gun up and blocked the hook but it curled over her shotgun and was yanked from her hands.

"Shit!" Alice backed up in front of Lori and was now cornered with nowhere to go. If she avoided than Lori would get hit. She felt her heart speed up the longer she stared at the approaching Hook Man when abruptly...a content smile fell to her lips and her eyes began to close.

The Hook Man slowly lifted his silver hook above his head when he suddenly stopped, frozen in his spot. His hook began to melt away and dip on to the floor when his body lit up in flames. His skin and clothes burned away and he crumbling to the ground, nothing but a pile of ash.

Alice's eyes snapped open and she stared down at the still smoldering pile before her. She finally felt like she could breathe and backed up against the wall. She slid down as all the strength vanished from her body from the pressure. Sam and Dean came running up a minute later and was relieved to see that Alice and Lori were safe. Alice looked a bit drained but she lifted her hand and gave them a thumbs-up, all while sporting a lazy and tired grin.

* * *

The church was surrounded by cops as soon as daybreak came. They flooded the surroundings and checked out every exit there was to hunt down the man with a hook, little did they know that he was already dispatched by the Hunters. Alice was already back in her leather riding gear and was currently being patched up in the back of an ambulance. Sam and Dean were being questioned by the sheriff, though it mostly felt like they were being interrogated.

"And you both saw him, too? The man with a hook." The sheriff said with his usual shifty gaze.

"Yes, we told you, we all saw him. We fought him off and then he ran." Dean tried to convince the man.

"And that's all?"

"Yes." the brothers said at the same time and were a bit offended, too.

The sheriff frowned. "Listen. You and your friends-"

"Oh, don't worry, we're leaving town." Dean cut in and he and Sam began to head over to the Impala to wait for Alice.

It was just one thing after another with her. First, it was the bruised neck and bloodshot eyes, and now it was a bruised back and knot on the back of her head. Alice groaned and rubbed her head that now had a good size bump on it. "Well, that's just great," she muttered and wasn't looking forward to the ride. "Riding out of here's gonna be a bitch."

"Are you going to be alright?" Lori asked and walked up to her with her usual meek smile.

"Just tired of getting beaten up, when it's usually the other way around," Alice said dryly.

Lori chuckled a bit and sat next to her, resting her hands in her lap. "I...I still don't know what happened. But I do know you saved my life." She wanted to smile but something was bothering her, something that happened back in the church, and it wasn't because of the Hook Man. "Um, Alice?" she began.

"What?" Alice cocked a brow at Lori's odd change in tone and waited for a second for her to talk, but instead, the young lady only smiled for some reason. It wasn't any normal, thankful smile. It was fake, an attempt to cover something up.

"It's...it's nothing. Thank you, Alice. I mean it."

For a solid five seconds, Alice was reflecting at the sudden change and wondered what she was going to say. But, the corner of her lips perked up and she decided to drop the topic. She patted Lori on the back. "Take care of your dad, okay?" Alice grabbed her helmet off the back of the ambulance and gave one last wave to the young woman. She headed back over to her bike that was parked beside the running Impala. The boys were already inside and were looking at her through the rearview mirror. She gave a light pat on the roof to signal that it was time to leave.

Lori watched with a fading smile as Alice and the boys drove away, the one question still lingering in the back of her head that will go unanswered.

Why...did it look like Alice stopped fighting?

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Ohh~ It ended on a rather morbid question. Why did Alice suddenly stop fighting? Oh, crap! And she actually looked content with herself as well? Even if Lori asked her, I don't think Alice would have answered her anyway. **

**Ugh. I was gonna post the final Hook Man chapter yesterday but ran out steam and could hardly keep my eyes open. So I decided to sleep on it and decide to do it the first thing in the morning. I'm still on the fence about this chapter but whatever. I really hope you liked it. **

**Alright. Next up we got Bugs! Not gonna lie, that was was my least favorite episode from the first season, but what are you gonna do. I hope to see you all again and until then...take really good care of yourselves!**


	12. Bugs Part 1

**BUGS PART 1**

Sam and Alice were both laying on the Impala beside each other. They were parked outside, in the twilight, of an Oklahoma bar and waiting for Dean to get done hustling people at a game of pool. He's been in there for at least two. They've been tracking John for a while now and all they got was nothing so far, so Alice suggested that they worked on something else for a change of pace.

She held a small flashlight in her hand and was scanning over her map that was covered with cases and red X's. Some were crossed out and others unworked. Sam laid beside her and used the brightness of Alice's flashlight to look at a picture in his hand. It was a picture of a man with his arm wrapped around a smiling Alice who looked three years younger. He had dark blonde, slightly curly hair in a pulled-back style. It also looked like his lips wanted to naturally curve up into a goofy-grin, too. His eyes were also very distinctly blue with brown flecks mixed in, giving him a very lively and young appearance, despite being the oldest.

"So this is Aiden," Sam said, leaning in close to Alice to get a better look with the light. "You guys kinda look alike. In the eyes, I mean."

Alice ran her light over the old picture of her brother. "I guess we do." She smiled softly at the photo before her lips curled up into a sudden smirk. "You know, you and Dean don't look anything alike."

Sam frowned and sat up. "Really?" he questioned and handed the picture back.

Alice shook her head and began to reach for her wallet. "Yeah, not to mention you both act differently too. Dean always seemed more eager to go on hunts, while you're kinda reluctant." She saw Sam avert his eyes when she mentioned that. "Sammy, it ain't a bad thing." she nudged him with her leg. "I understand that it's a hard thing to get into. You see, Aiden...actually didn't really like me going on solo hunts, so he took every chance he got to go with me."

The corner of Sam's mouth threatened to move up into a smile at her attempt to cheer him up. "It's 'Sam'," he reminded and noticed Alice's lips turn up into a smirk, a bit similar to Aiden's now that she thinks about it.

"Do you want me to start calling you Samantha instead?" Alice smiled and went back to the map in her lap. She trailed the paper roads with her finger until she came across the word '_Hunt_' in big red letters. "There's a hunt in this state that's probably worth checking out," she said.

Sam moved up to get a better look. "How long ago did you mark it down?"

"Not long. It's only been a week since the death. So it's still fresh." Alice cut off her light and began to fold the map back up just when Dean walked out of the bar, grinning ear to ear with a wad of cash in his hand.

Sam rolled his eyes when he saw his brother's goofy grin. "You know, we could get day jobs once in a while." He heard Alice snort at his comment.

"Hunting is our day job." Dean defended and counted up his wad. "And the pay is crap."

"The pay is always crap." Alice chimed in and hopped off the Impala. She snatched the cash out of his hand and began to go through it. Dean looked like he was going to argue but decided not to when she gave him a look that screamed 'don't touch'. Alice divided the cash up between the three of them and handed out their share. "Spending money. Don't waste it."

Dean grumbled and looked at his now smaller wad of money. "Yes, dear," he muttered under his breath.

Sam flipped through his small stack. "Yeah, but hustling pool? Credit card scams? it's not the most honest thing in the world, guys."

"Well, let's see. Honesty." Dean held out one hand. "Fun and easy." He made a gesture that 'fun and easy' outweighed 'honesty'. "It's not a contest. Besides, we're good at it. It's what we were raised to do."

"Yeah, well, how we were raised was jacked." Sam insisted but Dean waved him off.

"Yeah, says you. We got a new gig or what?" He watched Alice walk over to her bike and fumbled through her bag. She pulled out a thick folder full of newspaper clippings and strolled back over to them.

"Yeah, maybe." She scanned through the clippings until she found the one she was looking for. "Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. It ain't far from here. A gas company employee, Dustin Burwash, supposedly die from Crutzfeldt-Jakob."

Dean cocked a brow. "What?"

Alice and Sam spoke at the same time. "Human mad cow disease."

"Mad cow," Dean repeated that name like he heard it before. "Wasn't that on Oprah?"

Alice paused for a moment and frowned. She looked away from the article and gave Dean a perplexed look. "You watch Oprah?"

Dean actually felt a bit embarrassed, now that he said that in front of her. He looked away and quickly got back on topic. "So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?"

"Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear. But this guy... it only took an hour. Maybe less."

Dean shrugged. "Okay, that's weird," he'll admit.

Alice began to head back over to her bike to put the folder clippings away. "It could just be a disease...or something nastier. Either way, it won't hurt to check it out." She jolted her keys between her hands and waited for Dean to make up his mind.

"All right. Oklahoma." He began to get inside the car. "Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money." Dean grinned and got in.

* * *

They took the long drive up to the Oklahoma Gas and Power Company building and pulled into the parking lot. Alice pulled into a spot beside the Impala and took her helmet off to look around. She made a gesture to Dean and pointed out to the eye witness, Travis Weaver standing by his truck on the other side of the lot. Dean and Sam got out of their car and followed Alice over to the witness.

"Travis Weaver?" Sam called out.

Travis looked up and nodded his head. "Yeah, that's right.

Dean immediately came up with a lie that would work. "Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?"

Travis furrowed his brow. "Dustin never mentioned nephews or a niece."

Alice quickly followed up Dean's lie to make it sound more concrete. "Really? Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest."

That caused Travis to smile fondly. "Oh, he did?"

Alice nodded. "Oh Yeah. But we wanted to ask you...what exactly happened out there?" she asked.

Travis cast his eyes to the ground somberly as the cruel memories returned. "I'm not sure. he fell in a sinkhole, I went to the truck to get some rope, and, uh..by the time I got back..."

"What did you see?" Dean asked.

"Nothing. Just Dustin."

Sam spoke up. "No wounds or anything?"

"Well, he was bleeding...from his eyes and his ears, and his nose. But that's it." Travis answered, looking just as confused as Alice was at the moment.

Dean looked at Alice before talking. "So you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?" he asked. Usually Alice was pretty good with guessing what the creature was by the statement, but obviously, by her silence, she was drawing a blank.

Travis shrugged. "I don't know. That's what the doctors are saying."

"But if it was, he would've been acting strange beforehand," Sam said. "Like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?"

"No. No way. But then again, if it wasn't some disease, what the hell was it?"

"That's a good question," Dean says.

Alice finally spoke up. "Where did this happen? can you tell us?'

Travis nodded. "Yeah."

* * *

Alice drove ahead of the Impala and slowly rolled down the empty public road of Oasis Plains, a new neighborhood that was still under construction. It didn't even look like anyone lived in the houses, judging by all the unfinished buildings and equipment laying around. They came to a stop right beside the sinkhole where Dustin died. It was still surrounded by police tape. Alice yanked her keys out and headed over to the hole with the boys on each of her sides.

"What do you think?" Dean asked Alice.

She shrugged. "Ain't sure. But if Travis has his facts straight, then it happened pretty damn fast."

They ducked under the police tape and looked over the edge of the sinkhole. It was surrounded by protruding roots and it was way too dark. Alice honestly couldn't see a dang thing down there.

Dean shined a flashlight down but it still couldn't penetrate the darkness. "So, some sort of creature chewed on his brain?"

"Nah, no entry wound." Alice debunked the theory and kneeled beside the hole, still trying to get a better look down there. "Whatever it was. It would've had to of been an inside job." She looked up and searched around for anything that could help her get down there. She spotted a nearby coil of rope and went over to pick it up.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked when he saw Alice pick up the rope and walk back over. "You're not thinking of going down there, right?"

"I can't see a damn thing. I need to get in there and look around," she wasn't hesitating at all.

Sam stared at her like she was crazy. "We don't know what's down there."

"That's the point. Do you want to go instead?" She cocked a brow and waited for his response. She was then taken back when he held his hand out like he was playing rock-paper-scissors. "You can't be serious." Her mouth dropped open.

Sam shrugged. "One way to settle it. Come on."

Alice glanced over to Dean to get some help but found no such thing. He was grinning ear to ear and was snickering under his breath. She then proceeds to give the biggest eye roll and drop the rope. "Fine," she groaned and held her hands out.

They hit their fists on the palm of their hands three times before unleashing their choice. Sam pulled out rock and Alice...gave scissors. An instant loss on her part. The looked on Alice's face was that of absolute betrayal when Sam suddenly broke out into a full-body laugh at her defeat on the first try.

Sam actually had to take a step back to catch his breath, his chest was hurting so much. "Ali- Are you serious? You do the same thing Dean does."

Alice's face burned red. "Shut up, Sam." She then threw the coil of rope violently at him and backed up.

Sam was still snickering to himself when Alice and Dean lowered him into the sinkhole. He was honestly surprised that she didn't drop him out of spite.

* * *

Needless to say, Dean and Alice were a little disappointed with the great discovery that Sam believed it was. He really didn't find much of anything down there, aside from a couple of beetles.

"I don't know what Alice was expecting." Sam sighed and moved around a dead beetle in his hand. "It's a hole, of course, there would be bugs. I think she would have been a lot more excited if the hole was covered with blood or had bones in it instead."

Dean rolled his eyes and gripped the steering wheel. "Because that's a lot more exciting. Sorry, but I'm with Alice on this one. So you found some beetles. In a hole, in the ground. That's shocking, Sam."

"There were no tunnels, no tacks. No evidence of any kind of creature down there. You know, some beetles do eat meat. Now, it's usually dead meat, but-"

"How many did you find down there?" Dean cut in, not wanting to hear the boring details about a beetles diet.

"Ten."

"It'd take a whole lot more than that to eat out some dude's brain."

"Well, maybe there were more."

Dean shook his head and still wasn't convinced that the beetles had a buffet on a man's brain. "I don't know, it sounds like a stretch to me-" he stopped himself when he saw Alice ahead of them slow down. "She's stopping," he announced

Alice stopped completely and looked back at the boys, pointing to her right. Sam and Dean followed where her finger went and saw a sign outside a house reading: '_Model Open. New Buyers' BBQ Today!_'. It looked like a house party happening inside.

Sam shrugged. "She probably thought it was a good place to start and grab information." He frowned and glanced over to Dean. Sam eyed his brother, already seeing where his mind was going. "I'm sure she didn't mean free food."

"Of course not." Dean protested. "I'm a professional."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Right."

Dean parked the Impala right outside the house and got out. Alice parked on the opposite side of the road to get the chance and look at the home. It had obvious signs of a family living in it.

Alice scoffed. "Freaking cookiecutter houses," she said and cut the bike off and pulled off her helmet.

The boys walked on ahead and knocked on the front door. A second later a middle-aged man answered it, plastering on a professional smile once facing the boys. "Welcome," he said.

"This the barbeque?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, not the best weather, but..." He offered his hand out. "I'm Larry Pike, the developer here. And you are...?"

"Dean. This is Sam."

"Sam, Dean, good to meet you. So, you two are interested in Oasis Plains?" Larry asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Let me just say...we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or...sexua-" Larry stopped himself when he saw Alice strolling up beside Dean. "Oh. I see now," he said, a bit embarrassed and quickly corrected himself. "Newlyweds?"

Alice blinked and stood there confused at what she just walked in on. "Huh-"

"Yes." Dean cut in rather quickly, grinning ear to ear. "Yup, that's exactly what we are." He even went as far as to drape an arm around the puzzled lady.

Alice's eyes went so wide at what he just said. Her mouth fell open but she couldn't bring herself to say a single word with how fast the whole situation came and went, sticking her in this stupid lie without backtracking away.

"We were actually looking for our first place." Dean glanced down at Alice and saw her frozen stiff, eyes wide and utterly silent. "Ain't that right, honey?"

He saw Alice's eyes twitched with boiling irritation. She couldn't even say anything without fearing that all hell was going to break loose that moment she would open her mouth. Given the chance, she would rip him a new one if she could.

Larry smiled. "Great, great. Well, come on in." he moved aside and let the three into the house.

They were let through into the backyard where people were walking around, chatting and eating.

"You said you were the developer?" Sam asked since Alice looked like she wasn't going to.

"Eighteen months ago, I was walking this valley with my survey team. There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself. This is our house. We're the first family in Oasis Plains." Larry walked up to a woman and introduced her. "This is my wife, Joanie."

Joanie smiled and held her hand out. "Hi there."

"Hi." Dean took her hand.

Larry began to address them by name. "Sam, Dean and..." he stopped though when he recalled never hearing Alice's name yet.

"Alice." Dean chimed in. "Her name's Alice."

Larry patted his wife's shoulder. "Tell them how much you love the place, honey. And lie if you have to because I need to sell some houses," he muttered under his breath before walking off back to the house.

Joanie laughed. "Don't let his salesman routine scare you. This really is a great place to live," she insisted.

Just then, a very energetic woman walked up behind Joanie. She looked very professional in her form-fitting suit and had her black hair pulled back in a tight bun. She immediately pulled out her hand. "Hi, Lynda Bloome, head of sales."

"Lynda was second to move in," Joanie informed them. "She's a very noisy neighbor, though," she said before leaving to step inside the house.

Lynda laughed awkwardly. "She's kidding, of course. I take it you two are interested in becoming homeowners," she said, gesturing to Alice and Dean.

Dean grinned when the opportunity to pull out this lie longer appeared. He just loved to tease Alice and see her reaction. "Yeah, _my wife_ and I are."

Alice finched under the stupid title. She dropped her head into her hand.

"Right. I'm gonna go talk to Larry." Dean said. "Okay, honey." He turned to leave and suddenly smacked Alice on the ass.

The mental string in Alice's mind finally snapped. She saw red and abruptly spun her body around. Using all her might and pent up frustration and embarrassment, she smacked Dean right on the ass, just like he did to her. The force almost knocked him over but he recovered quickly and managed to not fall. He looked over his shoulder and frowned at Alice before walking to the house, his backside now stinging a bit.

Alice rolled her eyes and looked away. "Dick..." she grumbled and saw Sam grinning from the corner of her eye. "Shut up, Sam."

* * *

Never in Alice's whole life or Sam's had they been forced to listen to the sales and ramblings of a woman who was so utterly tiresome to listen too. Just hearing her talk was making Alice want to sit down and sleep. She swore, the only thing she got from her was something about a steam shower...which honestly didn't sound so bad right now. It beats listening to this woman. Alice's attention was soon pulled away when her tired blue eyes landed on something with four hairy legs. A tarantula slowly crawling towards Lyndra's hand. Alice quickly embowed Sam and they both noticed what looked to be a teenager standing behind her with an excited grin on his face.

Alice lifted her arm up and gently moved past the still rambling woman and up to the tarantula. She wasn't remotely scared of spiders and easily swooped the thing up onto the knuckles of her fingers. Alice stared at the spider without worry and walked back over to the kid. "Nice try," she said and let the spider crawl back onto the owner's hand.

The kid rolled his eyes, a little surprised and disappointed that Alice wasn't scared to pick up the hairy creature. "You gonna tell my dad?" he asked.

Sam walked up to them. "Don't know. Who's your dad?"

The kid scoffed. "Yeah, Larry usually skips me in the family introductions."

The remark even burned Alice a bit. "First name basis, huh. That's pretty damn depressing if you ask me."

The teenager watched the spider move around on his hand. "Well, I'm not exactly brochure material."

"Well, hang in there. It gets better, all right? I promise. "Sam assured him, getting a puzzled look from Alice at the same time.

The kid gave Sam a look. "When?"

"Mathew." Larry's booming voice caught their attention and they saw the man storming over to them, Dean right behind them. "I'm so sorry about my son and his...pet," he said with disgust coming off the last word he spoke.

"Not a problem. "Alice said and shook her head.

"Excuse us," Larry walked away with Matt, definitely going to have a few choice words to say to him once they were out of earshot.

"Remind you of somebody?" Sam suddenly asked, looking over to Larry yelling at his son. Dean looked confused. "Dad?"

"Dad never treated us like that," Dean said and Sam rolled his eyes.

"Well, Dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case." Sam grumbled. "You don't remember?"

"Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes, you were out of line."

Sam scoffed. "Right. Right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bowhunting."

"Bowhunting's an important skill."

Alice sighed deeply. "It's really not." She knew a fight was going to happen if she didn't butt in, and she honestly didn't feel like listening to the ramblings of siblings. "So what do you think? You ready to buy?"

Dean laughed. "Oh yeah. Totally. So you might be onto something. Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn't the first strange death here."

Alice frowned. "What happened?"

"About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry's surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Get this, severe allergic reaction to bee stings."

"More bugs."

"More bugs." Dean turned grim.

A hole began to form in Alice's stomach. She had never been squeamish around bugs, and actually had fond memories of her and Aiden playing with them when they were young, but something about this case was beginning to make her skin crawl like pissed off fire ants all over her body.

* * *

It felt like they were at the BBQ all day when the sun finally sank behind the unfinished buildings. The only light there was were the headlights from the Impala and the single light from Alice's bike driving through the neighborhood.

Sam was behind the wheel and Dean took the chance to look through the Cromwell journal, seeing that it had more information. He looked through this thing like twenty times already and found out something new each time.

Dean closed the Journal. "You know, I've heard of killer bees, but killer beetles. What is that could make different bugs attack?"

"Well, hauntings sometimes include bug manifestations." Sam reminded.

"Yeah, but I didn't see any evidence of ghost activity."

"Yeah, neither did Alice and me."

"Maybe they're being controlled somehow. You know, by something or someone."

Sam nodded his head. "Yeah, Alice said the same thing. She said it was like Willard."

Dean laughed, wishing he could have heard that. "Yeah, bugs instead of rats. It's kinda like the whole Timmy-Lassie thing." He paused for a moment and realized something. "Larry's kid. He got bugs for pets."

"Matt?" Sam said.

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula," Sam recalled.

"You think he's out Willard?"

"I don't know. Anything's possible, I guess."

Dean looked up just as they were about to pass one of the finished houses. "Ooh, hey. Pull here," he quickly said.

Sam gave his brother a look and flashed the Impala's headlights to grab Alice's attention. She stopped and looked back at them just as Sam pulled into one of the driveways of the houses.

Alice reached up and pulled her helmet off. "The hell are you doing?" she called out.

Dean quickly got out and walked over to the garage door. "It's too late to talk to anybody else," he said and pulled up the door.

She soon realized what he was doing. "We're going to squat in an empty house?"

"I wanna try the steam shower. Come on." Dean waited off to the side while Sam pulled into the garage. "Alice!"

"Yeah, yeah." Alice shook her head and quickly pulled in behind the Impala. "But I'm trying the steam shower first," she said while passing Dean.

"Can I join you?"

She gave him a devilish smirk. "No, but you can wait outside the bathroom until I get done."

Dean rolled his eyes and pulled the garage door shut behind them.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Happy Halloween, my dears! I just now made the deadline because I really, really wanted to post this chapter on this holiday. Not only is it Alice's birthday, but it's mine as well! (I'm now 22 years old) This is my Halloween treat to you all and just a small thank you for liking my story. It honestly makes me so damn proud.**

**We all a teasing Dean, don't we. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile. I find it funny that Alice slapped his ass back just as hard. God...I really want them to get together, but we'll all just have to wait. **

**I'm also watching the last supernatural season right now...and also having a minor heart attack. I don't know about you guys, but I just have a strange feeling that something is going to happen to our boys. I'm scared to death over it and honestly not ready for what's going to happen. **

**That's all I have to say right now. Wish me and Alice a happy birthday, and I'll see you later. **


	13. Bugs Part 2

**BUGS PART 2**

Alice speedily climbed the stairs, skipping every other step on her way up. After rounding the corner, she noticed that steam was slipping through the cracks of the bathroom, the sound of rushing water behind the door as well. She bit down on her lips and took a simple breath, her eyes soon twitching with slight irritation. It was already a new day, the next morning to be exact and something already happened during the duration of the night. Another body dropped. They had to go. Naturally though, Dean was taking his sweet time with the shower and has been in there for over an hour. Alice doesn't even take that long. Sam doesn't take that long. Literally no one takes that long, so why does Dean have to be the exception?

She tapped her knuckles against the door and called out. "Quit falling in love with the shower, man. We gotta go!" She heard scampering on the other end.

"What?" Dean called back, not fully hearing her over the sound of the marvelous water pressure.

"Sam picked up a police call on the scanner. Someone was found dead three blocks from here." Alice impatiently tapped her heel against the floor and waited for Dean to respond, but instead, he opened the door just an inch to peek his face through, grinning ear to ear.

"This shower is awesome," he said with the biggest smile stretched across his face. Steam filled the bathroom behind him and he even had a towel over his head.

This may even bee the first time she saw a grown man so happy about a steam shower. It was childish. Yeah, Alice enjoyed it a lot since it was the first time she's even used one, but Dean's reaction to it... He's acting like he scratched off the winning lottery ticket to a Powerball.

He stared at her with a very flirtatious grin. "Sure you don't wanna join me?"

Alice stared blankly back before she leaned in very slowly, speaking in a low rumbling voice. "If you don't get out of the shower in the next 5 seconds... I'm going to walk in and scrub you down in a toilet brush." Her voice was threatening. A dare for him to push her further over the edge.

He didn't mind her walking in on him at all, though he didn't believe that part about the toilet brush. Ever since that case back in St. Louis, things...felt a bit different between them. Not much, but rather subtle. Dean was just as stubborn as she was, so he had no intention of giving up on her, willing to really try anything to make it work and see if that relationship can go anywhere, but Alice was such a closed-off person that it was so much more difficult than he anticipated. Yeah, the flirting was still there, but he felt like that was just a natural reaction she had to things. Hell, she even does it to Sam sometimes.

Five seconds went by in a blink of an eye and the moment it did, Alice's face dropped. She grabbed the doorknob and began to try and forcefully yank it open. Dean broke out in a panic when he realized she was very serious about that threat and braced the door, closing and locking it before she could bust in and scrub off his skin.

"Alright, alright! Just give me 10 minutes!" Dean called out from behind the safety of the door. He truly believed if she really wanted in...she would break down the freaking door. He didn't doubt her capabilities for one second.

Alice's lips curled up into a smirk before she turned around and joyfully strolled down the steps.

* * *

Alice sat in the back of the Impala and started out the window at the growing darkness that was happening outside, covered by a light rain shower. It was because of the weather that she decided to not ride her bike, hitching a ride with the boys instead.

"Hmm." Alice hummed a bit. The gloominess actually caught her off guard though, cause the other days it was bright and sunny. There was no indication at all that it was going to rain.

"Something up?" Dean glanced at her through the rear-view mirror.

Her lips turned down into a frown before shrugging her shoulders. "Nah."

The coroners were pulling the plastic-covered body out on a stretcher just as Dean drove up to the house and parked beside the curb. The boys got out with black umbrellas while Alice merely just yanked her hood up to cover herself from the light drizzle...which was still baffling her, really.

They spotted Larry, who was on the phone and walked up to him. Alice could tell that he was obviously and understandably a bit jarred by what happened, judging by the shakiness in his voice.

Larry turned around when the three walked up to him. He was a bit surprised to see them. "Hello. You're, uh, back early." He wasn't as professional this time around.

Dean gave a quick excuse. "Yeah, we just drove in, wanted to take another look at the neighborhood."

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

Larry bit down on his lips and gestured to the house. "You guys met, uh...Lynda Bloome at the barbecue?"

Alice could recall the name. "The realtor."

"Well, she, uh...passed away last night." Larry struggled to say.

Sam and Alice's eyes grew wide from the sudden striking news, choking on the humid air for a second while trying to absorb what he just said.

"What happened?" Dean asked.

"I'm still trying to find out. Identified the body for the police." He lowered his head. "Look, I'm sorry, this isn't a good time right now."

Alice held her hand up to stop him from talking anymore, noticing that it was becoming difficult for him. "Don't worry about it."

"Thank you." He shook his head and turned to leave. "Excuse me."

Dean waited until Larry was out of earshot before addressing the two, already knowing what they were thinking. "You know what we have to do, right?"

Alice sighed, groaning really. "Yeah...gotta get into that house. See if we have an infestation."

* * *

The window in Lynda's room slowly opened up and Alice was the first to climb through, followed by the boys. The inside of the bedroom had an outline of a dead body on the ground. Blood ran over the edges of the tape, and inside the bathroom was a broken shower with shattered glass all over the place. It honestly looked like she broke out from the shower and fell, getting cut up in the process.

Alice walked inside the bathroom and noticed a towel on the ground. She reached down and picked it up but only for a couple of dead but poisonous spiders to fall out of it. She dropped the towel immediately upon realizing the grim discovery, now fulling understanding what happened to her last night. "More bugs."

"From Spider Boy?" Dean glanced up at his brother

"Matt," Sam corrected. "Maybe."

* * *

Neither Sam nor Alice wanted Matt to be the cause of the wild insect killings. He was a kid after all, but there have been times in the past that a kid had been responsible for the supernatural, times that Alice was not proud of. It was like a hard slap across the face whenever it was a child, but she figured it out pretty quickly that anyone, no matter the age or history, could be involved.

The three Hunters waited patiently inside the Impala as a school bus pulled up to the side of the street. Matt was the only one to get out and began to make his way around the bus, away from his house.

Alice moved up in the back and rested her arms against the front seat. "Where the hell's he going? Ain't his house the other way?"

Sam's lips thinned out into a line. Things weren't looking bright right now for Matt if this was the first thing they caught him doing. "Yep."

They watched the peculiar kid walk straight into the woods that were right across the street. Sam, Dean, and Alice got out of the car the moment Matt disappeared from their sight and went in after him.

Alice was lowkey expecting a blood sacrifice or maybe even voodoo. Something that would've made the bugs move as they did. Like animals in a circus. Matt wasn't doing anything evil at all...just curiously examining a grasshopper he let crawl on his hand. Alice wasn't sure if she was relieved that Matt wasn't doing anything or disappointed that the case wasn't over yet.

Sam walked up to the kid. "Hey, Matt. Remember us?"

Matt turned around and could easily recognize Sam and Alice from the barbecue. "What are you doing out here?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, we wanna talk to you," Dean said.

Matt stared at them for a second when it finally processed through his head. "You're not here to buy a house, are you?" The three shook her heads and Matt immediately became alarmed. "W-wait. You're not serial killers?"

The accusation made the logical part in Alice's head shut down immediately, firing back with this sly and sarcastic remark that was totally off the top of her head. "Yes, we're serial killers here to scoop out your brain with a spoon." She stared dead at the kid as Sam and Dean tried to stifle a laugh. "Who the hell would ask a question like that?"

Dean patted Alice's shoulder. "Don't mind her...she just happens to have a morbid sense of humor." He looked at Matt, trying to find a way to address the right question. "So, Matt...you sure know a lot about insects."

Matt cocked a brow. "So?"

"Did you hear what happened to Lynda, the realtor?"

"I hear she died this morning," Matt answered.

"Mm, that's right. Spider bites."

Sam spoke up to get straight to the point. "Matt...you tried to scar her with a spider."

The kid stood there frozen at what these strangers were trying to pin on him. "Wait. You think I had something to do with this?"

Alice tilted her chin up. "You tell us." She eyed him, still trying to search for any kind of lie or hesitation in his voice. The kid really just seemed baffled though.

"That tarantula was a joke," Matt said. "Anyway, that wouldn't explain the bee attack or the gas company guy."

Alice's brow slowly raised. "You knew about that?"

"There is something going on here. I don't know what...but something's happening with the insects. let me show you something." He picked his backpack off the ground and began to lead the way with the trio following close behind.

"So, if you knew all this bug stuff, why not tell your dad? Maybe he could clear everybody out." Sam asked.

Matt rolled his eyes. "Believe me, I've tried. But, uh, Larry doesn't listen to me."

"Why not?"

"Mostly? He's too disappointed in his freak son."

"I hear you." Sam scoffed.

Dean eyed his brother and was even was given a strange look from Alice. "You do?"

Sam ignored them. "Matt, how old are you?"

"Sixteen," he answered.

"Well, don't sweat it, because in two years, something great's gonna happen."

"What?"

"College. You'll be able to get out of the house and away from your dad."

Dean quickly chimed in at that. "What kind of advice is that? Kid should stick with his family." He noticed Sam giving him a side-eye glare. They both were saved though when Alice spoke up.

"Well since we're talking about family then maybe I should put my two cents in." She stuck her hands deep in her pockets and peered over her shoulder at the boys, a look of slight displeasure crossing her blue eyes. "College is still far away and people can change their minds and have a different perspective on life and what they wanna do with it. In the end...it's still his decision...and he has a hell of a lot of time to patch things up with his own family before he makes his final call. Give it some time. See what happens, and if nothing changes then...c'est la vie."

They may have irritated Alice a bit more than normal this time around, talking bitterly about family and all. Neither Sam nor Dean knew her to chime in and say her peace until now...and she definitely has a point. Matt's still young and they had to look at things a different way because of that fact.

"How much further," Alice asked.

"We're close."

They kept on walking through the thick brush of the woods until they came to a large clearing, the sounds of hundreds of insects bouncing off the trees. The scraping and buzzing noises were a bit eerie to listen to after a while.

"I've been keeping track of the insect population," Matt explained. "It's, uh, part of an AP science class."

"The hell's going on?" Alice said. This whole scene was just bizarre to her.

"From bees to earthworms, beetles...you name it. It's like they're congregating here.

"Why?" Dean said.

"I don't know."

Sam noticed something a few feet away from them. It was a dark patch of grass with something moving around in it. They walked over to it and saw that it was at least hundreds of worms all conjured in that one spot. Dean walked over and lightly stepped on it, the ground below falling away into a dark hole. He grabbed a nearby stick and started poking around inside until he taped against something hard and hollow.

"There's something down there," he called out. Dean honestly didn't want to stick his hand down in there, so he pleadingly looked up at Alice. "Sweetheart. Could you, uh..."

A deep sigh escaped her throat and she walked over. "What would you boys do without me," she said and kneeled down, rolling up her sleeve.

"I honestly don't like to think about it," he said honestly.

Alice cast him an uneasy glance before sticking her hand into the cold and wormy ground. She shoved away a couple of bugs before grasping hold of whatever was down there. She finally pulled it up and shook off the dirt, Alice's face soon becoming alert.

"Well...just damn."

In her hand was a human skull.

* * *

The old pile of bones was quickly covered by Alice's leather jacket the moment the Impala parked outside the local university. Sam got out of the car and grabbed the box of bones on his way out.

"So, a bunch of bones in an unmarked grave," Sam said and waited by the car for Alice and Dean to get out.

"Yeah. Maybe this is a haunting. Pissed off spirit? Some unfinished business?" Dean shot out an idea and looked to Alice. "Got anything?"

She shook her head. "Not really. But these bones here..." She patted the box Sam was holding. "They definitely lower our options. I'm pretty sure now with whatever's going on...it has something to do with these."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, maybe. Question is, why bugs? And why now?"

"That's two questions," Dean said and Sam ignored him. "Yeah, so with the kid back there...why'd you tell him to just ditch his family like that?"

Alice felt her heart plummet the moment she heard that. She began to walk a bit faster to avoid the coming storm that was about to hit in the next five seconds.

"Just, uh...I know what the kid's going through." Sam replied.

"How about telling him to respect his old man, how's that for advice." Dean shot back.

"Dean, come on." He and Dean stopped walking. Alice did too but she made sure to stand at least a few feet away, not wanting to get involved with this growing argument or hear it too. "This isn't about his old man. You think I didn't respect Dad. That's what this is about."

Dean notice that Alice was becoming more and more uncomfortable by the minute and decided to just drop the topic. "Just forget it, all right. Sorry I brought it up."

Sam didn't let up and kept on rambling, not noticing Alice's growing glare towards them. "I respected him. But no matter what I did, it was never good enough."

Dean looked confused. "Why would you think that?"

"Because I didn't wanna bowhunt or hustle pool. Because I wanted to go to school and live my life, which, to our whacked-out family, made me the freak.

His remark made Alice's chest sting a bit. She can't imagine what it was like at his age since their families were different. Aiden was a goofy idiot but with a good head on his shoulders, always looking out for his sister. Her mom, Charlotte was just as sarcastic as Alice is now, not taking crap from anyone and saying things as they were. But her dad though, she doesn't remember much and only hears stories from Aiden and her mother. Jackson was...a lot like Aiden and always seemed to have a smile on his face. He adored his wife and was a doting father to his kids.

But then they all died...slowly...one after the other...until all that remained was a single woman with fading memories and a reluctant title she carried on her shoulders. The freaking Cromwell line of Hunters. They were no different from your run of the mill family. They had good times as well as bad times. Yeah, they were different but at the time...it just felt really normal to Alice.

Hell, the comment about the whacked-out family even went as far as to offend her.

Dean looked over at Alice one more time and saw her face slowly become dejected. She began backing away from them and before head to the university by herself. "Alice!" he called out but she didn't look back at them.

"I'll be inside waiting when you girls are done with your hissy fit." Her voice was bitter towards them, waving her hand.

Dean bit down on his lips and took a breath, snapping his head back to Sam and was visibly angry now, grinding his words out through his teeth. "Sam, Dad was never disappointed in you. Never. He was scared."

Sam was actually taken back. "What are you talking about?"

"He was afraid of what could've happened to you if he wasn't around. But even when you two weren't talking...he used to swing by Stanford whenever he could. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe."

Sam's smirk faded. "What?"

Dean gave an exasperated answer. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me any of that?"

"Well, it's a two-way street, dude. You could've picked up the phone." He saw Sam's eyes cast sadly to the ground. "And another thing... About our family, this life. You think it's screwed up but...this is also Alice's life too. You might as well insult her and her family while you're at it."

Sam's eyes grew wide but the damage was already done. He looked to try and find Alice but she was already inside the building. "I didn't...I..." He bit down on his lips when he realized what he did.

"If you wanna apologize then you can do it later. Come on, we're gonna be late for our appointment."

The two hastened their pace and hurried to the university to catch up to Alice.

* * *

"This is quite the interesting find you've made." the professor said while taking the bones from Sam. "I'd say they're 170 years old, give or take. The timeframe and geography heavily suggest Native American."

Alice pulled her jacket back on when it finally clicked for her. "Ah...Indian burial grounds," she muttered. "Was there any tribes on that land?"

"Not according to historical records. But the, uh, relocations of native people were quite common at the time."

"Right." Sam nodded his head. "Well, are there any local legends? Oral histories about the area?"

"Well... You know, there's a Euchee tribe in Sapulpa. It's about sixty miles from here. Someone out there might know the truth."

Alice mumbled the name under her breath and felt something began to form in the pit of her stomach. Uneasiness started to take over as this thought crossed her mind, an idea that she's hoping wasn't the case.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**It's been a while. The last time I posted was on Halloween. Sorry about that. I guess my planning was a bit off. Oh well.**

**Man...Alice is DONE with Sam and Dean's constant bickering about this family. She's always stayed on the sidelines, but this time...she's done with their shit. But we all know that it ain't the end for the boys, so I wonder how she's gonna handle it next time around.**

**And I love the Idea of Alice just barging in on Dean while he's in the shower, threatening to scrub his skin off with a toilet brush. She doesn't care. When shit needs to get done...you better move your butt and get in the car before she finishes counting down from five. And I just love that Dean and Alice still kinda flirt with each other even though things are kinda complicated between them right now. It's just...sorta their thing now. **

**Thank you all so much for sticking with me during the growing story. We still got halfway to go until season 1 ends, but don't worry...I got an idea of what I'm gonna do with it. **


	14. Bugs Part 3

**BUGS PART 3**

The trip to Sapulpa was decently long but did end up being the place they needed to go to get information. Alice noticed while driving that at least a good chunk of the population was of Native American descent, and after asking directions from one of them, they headed to a local diner. Her and the boys parked outside the joint and headed in. The place was crowded with people ready to start their morning with breakfast, but others were just sitting around and talking with the residents.

Alice looked around the area before her eyes landed on one man in particular. He was sitting alone at a table and was just silently playing cards by himself. He was Native American and had a face that was weathered with age. She tapped the boys on the shoulders before gesturing over to the lonesome man. "That must be our guy," she said in a small voice before they walked over to him.

"Joe White Tree?" Sam asked and the man glanced up at them, nodding his head. "We'd like to ask you a few questions if that's fine with you."

Dean agreed and shook his head. "We're students from the university-" He was suddenly cut off.

"No, you're not. You're lying." Joe said and stared dead at Dean with an unwavering expression, seeing right through his ploy like it was nothing. No hesitation at all.

Alice cocked a brow and just stood their, silence rolling by them as their minds processed what he had just said. He immediately pointed out his lie in a flash of a second, so it about gave her whiplash. "Well, you see-" Even Alice wasn't able to get a single word in before Joe cut her off as well.

"Lie. You're a liar too. Just like him," he said while pointing at Dean, making Alice promptly shut her mouth too, as tight as a clam and as confused as a bird flying into a glass window.

The two Hunters just stood there, very much baffled. Alice looked more so annoyed while Dean was conflicted and confused. Funny enough, neither of them could complain or defend themself since Joe wasn't lying. They were both somewhat of compulsive liars because of their job, and it became a bad habit since neither of them noticed that they did it until Joe pointed it out.

Alice sunk within her defeat, patting Sam on the back and slightly shoving him forwards too. "Sam, talk to him." She ordered him with a flat voice filled with irritation.

Sam hesitated at first before jumping right to the chase. "Have you heard of Oasis Plains? It's a housing development near the Atoka Valley," he asked.

Joe looked at Sam before shifting his gaze back to Alice and Dean. "I like him. He's not a liar." The two just gave each other an annoyed look. "I know the area."

"What can you tell us about the history there?"

"Why do you wanna know?" Joe cocked a brow and gave the three a skeptical look.

Alice had to put aside her compulsive lying habits and sit down across from the man. All she wanted right now was to get answers as quickly as possible. She feard, whatever it was, that they were running out of time. She didn't want Matt and his family getting caught in the crossfire. "Something bad is happening over there and we think it might have something to do with some old bones we found. They were Native American."

Joe appeared to ponder on her words for a minute before something popped in his head. "I'll tell you what my grandfather told me, what his grandfather told him. Two hundred years ago, a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant, the cavalry impatient. As my grandfather put it, on the night the moon and the sun share the sky as equals, the cavalry first raided our village. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again, and the next, and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time. And by the time the sun rose, every man, woman, and child still in the village was dead. They say on the sixth night, as the chief of the village lay dying, he whispered to the heavens that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. Nature would rise up and protect the valley. And it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people."

Taking a moment to soak everything up, Alice sat there, completely calm, fingers up to her lips and eyes narrowed with deep thought. "Insects?" she muttered and glanced at her boys.

Dean shrugged. "Sounds like nature to me. Six days."

Joe nodded. "And on the night of the sixth day, none would survive," he said ominously with an air of mystery shrouding his words.

Alice and the boys gave each other a silent look, knowing.

* * *

The three rushed out of the diner and headed over to their vehicles after getting the whole haunting truth from Joe.

"When did the gas company man die?" Sam asked while circling the Impala to the passenger's door.

Dean bit down on his lips to think about that for a second. "Uh, let's see, we got here Tuesday, so, Friday the twentieth."

Alice felt her blood run cold. "Ain't that on the spring equinox?" She hated to be right but it was confirmed when both the boys nodded. "Shit."

"Yeah. The night the sun and moon share the sky as equals," Dean says.

Alice walked over to her bike that was parked beside the Impala. She pulled her helmet off the handlebars and stopped before putting it on. Her lips curled up before she turned to look at the boys. "Larry built the neighborhood on cursed lands, the dumbass." She pulled the helmet over her head and plugged her keys into the ignition, bringing the motor to life in all its rumbling and roaring glory. "The sixth night...that's tonight."

"Then how the hell are we supposed to break a curse." Dean groaned with frustration. "Alice, have you had any experience with this?"

She nodded grimly. "Yeah, a long time ago when Aiden was still with us. You don't stop a curse, guys. You either get the hell out of its way or hunker down and brace yourself."

Sam frowned while opening the passenger's door. "Is there no other way?"

Alice's gaze was stern and serious. "We don't even have the time to think of anything else."

Dean quickly ushered Alice to get ready while he hopped into the diver's side and started up the car. "We'll think about it later. Come on, we've gotta get those people out now."

* * *

Dean broke the speed limit on the highway like he was trying to outrun the darkness that was sweeping across the roads, racing back to the neighborhood as fast as his car could take. Alice kept up a good pace ahead of them too but wasn't completely out of sight yet.

Dean quickly called Larry on the phone to see if he could lie and convince him and his family to leave before they got there. "Yes, Mr. Pike, there's a mainline gas leak in your neighborhood," he said and took a nervous and uneasy glance to Sam who listened in.

"God, really? And how big?" Larry answered back.

"Well, it's fairly extensive. I don't want to alarm you, but we need your family out of that vicinity for at least twelve hours or so, just to be safe."

"And who is this again?"

"Travis Weaver. I work for Oklahoma Gas and Power."

Larry paused for a moment. "Well, the problem is, I know Travis. He's worked with us for a year, so who is this?"

Dean's eyes grew wide. Panicking, he quickly hung up.

"Give me the phone," Sam ordered and snatched the phone from him, dialing a number at lightning speed.

"Hello?" Matt's slight panicked voice answered in almost two seconds flat.

"Matt, it's Sam."

"Sam, my backyard is crawling with cockroaches," Matt said, alarmed.

"Matt, just listen. You have to get your family out of that house right now, okay?" Sam urged him.

"Why, why?"

"Because something's coming."

"More bugs?"

"Yeah, a lot more."

Matt sounded reluctant. "My dad doesn't listen in the best of circumstances, what am I supposed to tell him?"

"You've gotta make him listen, okay?"

Dean Immediately grabbed the phone from Sam's hand. "Give me the phone, give me the phone. Matt, under no circumstances are you to tell the truth, they'll just think you're nuts. Tell him you have a sharp pain in your right side and you've gotta go to the hospital." he said

Matt studdered for a bit before replying. "Yeah. yeah, okay." He hung up.

Dean cast Sam an odd stare before shaking his head, speeding to catch up to Alice. "Make him listen? What are you thinking?"

* * *

An inky blackness swept over the neighborhood the time Alice and the boys made it back, but to their dismay, they saw that the car was still parked it the driveway. The Pikes were still here and they had little less than an hour before midnight. There was no telling what was going to happen or what it possibly could be. Would spiders come and web up the house? Could Termites invade and eat away at the foundation until everything collapsed? Knowing how big the list was and the endless array of possibilities made Alice all the more nervous. Her expression hardened every second they weren't trying to leave this area and her own body felt like it was being invaded with ants with how much her own skin was crawling.

Larry peered out his window and saw the three strangers parked right outside his house. He then promptly stormed out his front door and raised his voice at them, pointing angerly with his face bright red. "Get off my property before I call the cops!" he shouted with Matt running out of the house.

"Mr. Pike, listen." Sam tried to convince him, Matt cutting in to help.

"Dad, they're just trying to help." the young man said, but his father wasn't having it.

"Get in the house!" Larry's face kept growing red with every shout.

Dean took his gaze to Matt and was thoroughly confused. "We had a plan, Matt, what happened to the plan?"

"Dean." Alice's voice cut in, sharp like a knife. They turned to glance at her and saw her blue eyes upon the darkened sky, narrowing and expecting something to happen at any moment now. She looked back at them and made a motion with her hand, tapping her finger against her wrist to tell them that time was up. "It's already 12:00 AM."

Her words were haunting to Sam and made him shiver all the way to his bones. It only pushed him more. "They are coming any minute now. You need to get your family and go before it's too late."

Larry could only roll his eyes. "Yeah, you mean before the biblical swarm."'

Alice rolled her eyes even harder but chose to keep her mouth shut, knowing her brute honesty certainly wouldn't help.

"Larry, what do you think really happened to that realtor, huh?" Dean said. "And the gas company guy? You don't think somethin' weird's going on here?"

"Look, I don't know who you are, but you're crazy. You come near my boy or my family again, and we're gonna have a problem."

"Well, I hate to be a downer, but we've got a problem right now." Dean shrugged his shoulders and kept looking back at Alice to see if her expression changed any. If there was a look of horror crossing the cutting blue in her eyes. Nothing yet.

"Dad, they're right, okay? We're in danger." Matt urged him more.

"Matt, get inside! Now!" Larry shouted back.

Matt had finally had enough and snapped out his words. "No! Why won't you listen to me?!"

"Because this is crazy! It doesn't make any sense!"

Sam raised his voice but kept his distance, holding his hands up to show he wasn't hostile towards him. "Look, this land is cursed! people have died here. now, are you gonna take that risk with your family?"

Everyone's attention was soon brought away when they heard Alice snapping her fingers in a constant manner. "Guys, guys. Hey!" She snapped. Her face was morphed into confusion, moving her head back and forth after hearing this strange buzzing noise that was only getting louder and louder. "The hell is that?" she said while stepping back between Sam and Dean, getting more than just a little nervous.

Even Larry was starting to become a bit anxious. "What the hell?"

Alice and the boys heard a sharp buzzing noise to their left and saw that the fluorescent bug light on the porch began to overheat, constantly humming with insects being zapped to death by the electric current running through it.

Alice's eyes narrowed upon the glassy moon and saw what looked to be a black mist blanketing the sky. It struck her as weird though since the mist...was moving fast and buzzing very loudly. It was millions upon millions of bugs blocking out the moon and coming in hot.

Larry gasped in horror at what he believed, only a moment ago, to be fake. "Oh my God."

Alice immediately stepped back and grabbed the back of the boy's coats. "Guys, remember when I said that there were only two ways to survive a curse? Looks like we're gonna have to go with Plan B."

Dean nodded before him and Sam started to rush everyone to the house as quickly as they could. "Everybody in the house. Everybody in the house, go!" They ran to the front door and hopped inside. Dean stopped and looked back. "Alice, get your ass in here now!"

Alice lingered back and looked at the mass hoard of bugs hazing the sky like an ominous mist. She darted her head away and ran inside the house, slamming and locking it behind her.

The moment everyone was safely inside, Sam and Dean began to lock all the doors while Alice and Matt checked all the windows, fastening them down and tugging at them to make extra sure.

"Matt, go upstairs and check the windows there too," Alice ordered while moving from window to window.

Matt turned around to respond to her but jumped back in shock. "Alice!" he said gravely, the color just absolutely draining from the poor boy's face.

Alice turned back around to the window to see what spooked him and about jumped right out of her own skin as well. "Son of a..." she muttered and backed away. On the window was a large black mass attached to the glass, growing bigger and buzzing loudly. An unholy surge of insects. "Holy..."

Dean rushed back into the room after hearing Matt's cries, screeching to a halt when he saw the mass of insects hanging on the window. "Oh, crap," he said grimly. He reached over and gently pulled Alice by the arm to get her away from the glass. "Brace yourself and hunker down, you say?" he repeated.

"God, I hope this house holds up." She signaled to Matt before they both ran up the stairs the check out the rest of the house. "Make sure you seal all the doors!" she called back before disappearing to the second floor.

Just then, Joanie entered the room and saw Sam and Dean stuffing the cracks below the doors with towels. Her face grew with worry. "Honey, what's happening? What's that noise?"

"Call 911." Larry urged her but she didn't move. "Joanie!"

"Okay," she said and grabbed the phone to dial. She slammed her finger down on the buttons but the screen was black. Nothing was going through. "Phones are dead."

"They must have chewed through the phone lines." Dean stuffed a towel under the front door to make sure nothing could worm its way through. A second later all the lights in the house went dead, leaving them to face the crisis alone in the dark. "And the power lines. Alice!" he called out immediately.

"We're alright!" Alice's shrill voice called from upstairs. He could even hear her heels clicking against the floor above them.

Larry nervously peeped out the windows that had a thick mass of bugs covering them now. He could no longer see outside. "So what do we do now?"

"Alice thinks we can outlast it. Hopefully, the curse will end at sunrise," Sam said.

Larry looked doubtful. "Hopefully?"

Dean, in the meantime, took the short amount of time he had and practically ransacked the kitchen to see if he could find anything useful. Though he doubted that there would be anything that could wipe out a swarm of this size. Still, he searched through the cabinets and found something that might be able to hold them off if only a little. "Ha! Found it!" His salvation came in the form of a simple bottle of bug spray.

After checking all the windows, Alice finally came back downstairs and into the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and stared at Dean, cocking an eyebrow in total confusion. "Do you really think that's going to work?"

Dean's jaw tightened. "What? You wouldn't happen to have a flamethrower in your back pocket, now would you?" he said sarcastically. "Cause I'm up for any kind of plan right now."

She scoffed at his attitude and shut him down with a witty remark of her own. "No. I left it in my other pants pocket." She reached into the inner lining of her leather jacket and pulled out a lighter and tossed it to Dean.

Dean glanced at it before looking back at Alice. "You sure we can outlast it?"

Alice didn't avoid his heavy stare. His green eyes burned into her almost cold blue ones, begging for answers. She could only shrug though. "I'm hoping." A smirk slipped to her lips soon after those words left her mouth. "Besides, I'm gonna be pissed if I die by a handful of bugs."

Dean blinked and stared at her before he looked down, smiling. "Yeah. You and me both."

They both share one last grin towards each other before heading back into the living room where everyone was waiting.

Just then there was a strange sound. A loud cracking and moaning noise of metal. The brothers looked around before their eyes landed on the fireplace when a mass hoard of bees suddenly dropped in and swarmed the room, flying around and buzzing in everyone's faces. The shouts of confusion and horrified screams were evident as they all tried to cover their heads and slap the bugs off their bodies.

Dean flicked open the lighter he was given and lit the can of bug spray, making everything flare up and burn away the surrounding bugs. "Alice, get them upstairs. Go, go, go!"

Alice pushed the family ahead of her towards the hallway where the bug haze cleared up a little. Dean continued to burn away the insects with the bug spray while Larry pulled down the ladder leading up into the attic. They all climbed up in a mad rush and slammed the door shut before the swarm could get in. Their situation hasn't gotten much better though, and in an instant, they were corner with nowhere to go anymore without being stung alive.

"Shit..." Alice cursed under her breath and felt her skin sting from the multiple red bumps all over her. She groaned in frustration and used the back of her cold hands to cool her face. "The bruises on my neck finally went away...and now this?"

Dean gave a half-hearted and lazy grin. "I guess people just love your face." The joke definitely wasn't up to Alice's approval with the death glare she threw at him. Dean even had to admit that it wasn't the best time for innocent flirting.

"Okay. You can go back downstairs and get stung to death now," Alice said bluntly.

It was a moment of peace that only lasted for a second before they heard something odd. Everyone looked up and saw sawdust falling from the ceiling, the sound of bees getting louder too.

"Oh, my God, what's that?" Joanie whimpered.

Alice, Sam, and Dean walked over to where they heard the racket and saw that the wood was slowly being gnawed through. The sawdust was falling from the small holes that were in the ceiling. Alice could easily hear the sound of very agitated bees too.

"Something's eating through the wood," Dean said grimly.

"Termites," Matt spoke up, huddled in a corner with his mom and dad.

The hole finally fell through and the small attic was overwhelmed with a mass of bees. The Pikes tried desperately to swat the bugs off them while Sam and Dean attempt to plug up the hole. It proved to not matter when three more holes opened up. The air was thick and heavy with bees, suffocating and burning them from the bee stings. Sam and Dean used their coats to cover Larry and Joanie while Alice hid Matt under the flap of her jacket. Her skin was on fire while she was pelted with bees dive-bombing her, some making their marks and others not.

Matt saw through Alice's jacket, a fraction of hope. He could see from the holes in the ceiling, morning light breaking through the cloudline and shinning into the attic. The bees then suddenly fleed and escape through the holes, leaving the Hunters and family alone. Alice felt her tense body finally relax before slumping down against the wall beside Matt. Sam and Dean walked over to the hole in the ceiling and could finally see it, the glorious sight of a pastel sky.

The night was over.

* * *

It was a splendid morning with not a single bug to be found when Alice and the boys rolled up to the Pike house, seeing Larry loading boxes up into a moving van.

"What, no goodbye?" Dean joked when he got out of the car.

Larry smiled at them. "Good timing. Another hour and we'd have been gone." He shook their hands firmly.

"For good?" Sam asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. The development's been put on hold while the government investigates those bones you found. But I'm gonna make damn sure no one lives here again."

That was comforting for Alice to hear, like a weight being lifted from her shoulders. "That's good. Ain't you upset though? This had to be a pretty big flop." Her words were brutally honest.

Larry shrugged and didn't deny it. "Well, this has been the biggest financial disaster of my career, but..." He glanced over to Matt who was walking out into the garage while carrying a box in his hands. "Somehow, I really don't care." his lips curled up into a smile.

They shared a smile before Sam and Alice walked over to Matt, noticing that he was throwing away all his insect stuff.

"What's this?" Sam exclaimed with a wide grin.

"Finally getting over the bug phase, I see." Alice laughed.

The kid smiled at them and looked away, observing all his stuff now in the garbage where they belonged. "I don't know. They kind of weird me out now." He'll admit.

Alice reached over and patted him on the back. Hard. "Matt. Take this as a sign to find a new hobby."

Soon after, Sam and Alice join Dean over by the Impala and silently leaned against it, watching Larry and Matt.

Needless to say, Alice was content. Whenever it was a family involved, it worried her to no end of how things were going to turn out. They all might be a bit sore from bee stings (Alice most of all) but she was sure that they were going to be alright. Not to mention, the overall atmosphere between Larry and Matt seemed to have changed for the better.

Sam took a worrying glance at Alice before turning back to Dean, seeing his brother eyeballing him with this knowing expression. He bit down on his lips and stayed quiet for a second before nudging her in the side. "Hey," he spoke gently.

Alice turned to him and slowly lifted a brow. "Yeah?"

Sam knew he still had to apologize to her but just didn't know how to go at it first. He didn't like arguing with his brother and especially didn't like doing it in front of Alice since she had nothing to do with it. So he knew he accidentally crossed the line about that comment he made. "Sorry. I said something...pretty messed up about this job, knowing that it was your family's life." Something clutched at his heart, guilt mainly, but only because he didn't want to disrespect Alice or her family, knowing that they been through a lot more crap than his.

Alice stared at him, her expression flat. She took in a deep breath before it escaped through her parted lips. "God...you have the strangest pair of puppy-dog eyes." Her lips turned up into a smile. "But you have a point. This is not a good job. It's messy and bloody...and people just have a habit of dying when they do it. But I guess I'm kinda proud about it since my mom and dad white-knuckled through it, taking in all the crap and was still able to have a family. In my opinion...that's the most badass thing there is for a Hunter to do." She reached up and patted him on the shoulder, ruffling his hair too until he smiled back. "Come on, boys. It's a new morning. Let's hit the road."

"Now you're speaking my language." Dean chimed with a wide grin. "You're following us though so don't drive ahead," he called out while she jogged over to her still-running bike.

"Yes, dear." Alice pulled her helmet over her face and revved up her bike.

The Impala drove out on the road with Alice, of course, speeding ahead with Dean laying down on the horn for her to slow down.


	15. Home Part 1

**HOME PART 1**

Darkness flooded his dreams and reality return to him like a rubber band snapping back into place. Every muscle in his body tensed up like a stone statue and he even struggled to breathe. His lungs were made of led and his throat was parched. It was a fleeting moment but Sam, for a time, didn't know where he was, much less the time either. There was no soft glow of morning light slipping through the curtains and the room seemed unnaturally dark to him. It took a second but he did eventually realize that he was still in his motel room. He could even hear Dean snoring in the bed beside him.

"Bad dream?" Sam nearly felt his heart leap from his chest when he heard Alice's rough voice fill the darkened void of the room.

He followed the voice to where it came from and saw her. Like usual, Alice was the only one who wasn't asleep and was working diligently at the table. There were dark circles under her eyes so it was obvious she's been up for more than a couple hours. It looked like she was doing research for a case though since his laptop was open in front of her. She had newspaper clippings, notes, and her family journal out too and spread across the small desk, leaving no space. Alice was even making sure to not wake the boys and was only using the light that was emitting from the screen.

Sam felt breathless as his lungs burned within him. He didn't say anything and stared extra long at her like she was a ghost coming back to haunt him. He grew pale in an instant when he realized that she was real, letting out a shuddering exhale.

* * *

Her deep and dispirited brown eyes stared at him that seemed forced and very practiced. The same with her smile that was bright and wide, yet had a pressing air about it that looked as though she was frightened. Her hair was blonde and had a shimmering golden sheen that was thinning out from stress, and her overall kind expression had a sense of urgency and uneasiness hidden behind her beaten and fair skin. There were black and purple bruising on her right cheek from a couple of days ago, and a cut on her lips that came from the day the picture was actually taken.

Sam's hand slowly began to tremble the longer he looked at the picture in his grasp, withered with age. His stomach immediately cringed with pain when he saw an obvious and sickening sign in the old photo. He knew in a single glance that this woman...didn't have a healthy life.

Beyond the woman's fair gaze though was a person standing in the back of her. A side profile of a rather tall and muscular man. He had ink-black hair with thick scruff on his face and a permanent scowl to go with his sharpened eyes. All around, he was a rather unpleasant sight to behold.

Sam's mind flew back to the vivid dream he had the night before and felt ill the moment he recognized the man. The same man that was in his dream was in the picture as well.

Alice was in his dream too but not in the way he could ever imagine her to be. It was like Sam was seeing everything through her eyes and felt all her emotions going through her body while being brutally attacked. He could feel the strain in her bones, the pressure against her neck, and the hot tears rolling down her face. She was beaten, bloody, and just too weak to even fight back.

He wanted to believe that his dream was the cause of a wild imagination but he couldn't believe it to be just that. It looked too real and it felt too real, and Sam honestly couldn't take it anymore. He jumped up from the bed in a flash and dropped the picture, hurrying to the bathroom as if his life and stomach depended on it. He wasn't sure if he was going to puke but he wouldn't be surprised if he did.

He hated it with every fiber of his being. The dream, the picture of the battered woman, the man in the background, searching through Alice's wallet to find more pictures. He was more disgusted with himself than anything though, doing something like that in order just to find a connection. But sure enough...there was one. Between Alice, the man, and the woman in the picture.

The hotel room was empty and silent, aside from the sounds of Sam dry heaving in the bathroom. The front door finally opened though and Dean and Alice stepped through, carrying bags of food and cups of coffee in their arms.

Dean cocked a brow when he didn't see Sam anywhere. "Sammy? Where you at? We got breakfast!" he called out, setting everything down on the counter beside the coffee.

Alice glanced around the room but her eyes immediately fixated on her wallet that was laying on the bed, her private picture no longer inside. "What the..." She walked over to her wallet and snatched it up along with the picture laying on the bed, making extra sure that it was hers. The fact that it was though is what angered her.

"What's that?" Dean asked, shuddering when he saw Alice's eyes slowly began to harden.

"Sam!" she snapped loudly, waiting as he sheepishly stepped out of the bathroom, face pale with fear. "The hell do you think you're doing looking through my things." Her voice was firm and deadly cold, causing Sam to flinch under her harshness.

"I'm sorry. I never would've done it if I wasn't worried." Sam tried to defend himself but couldn't come off strong enough to prove his point.

"Alice. Sweetheart, hold on." Dean patted Alice on the shoulder and tried to defuse the situation before a murder could take place. "We all know that he wouldn't do something like this unless he didn't have a choice. There had to be a good reason, ok?" He looked to his brother and eyed him. "You said you were worried, but why?" It seemed unlikely for anyone to be worried about Alice so this was starting to concern him too.

Sam stood absolutely still with Alice's eyes glaring at him with all the intensity of burning hellfire. Finally, he took a breath and opened up. "I think...something bad is going to happen to Alice." He saw their faces beginning to contort as the words settled deep within their minds.

"Come again?" Dean said in response. He wasn't sure if he heard Sam correctly so he looked to Alice for clarity, seeing a strike of horror and bewilderment across her face. He knew in that instant that his brother was serious, a cold chill like boney hands crawling up his spine one finger at a time.

Sam was still pale, even worse than before. There was hesitation up in his eyes that he purposely tried to avoid having Alice see. "Uh...it's just, um...something came up and...I think it has something to do with Alice," he gestured.

At first, she wasn't sure what he was talking about since the world seemed to slow down for her, or maybe it was her own mind. But she looked down at the photo once, eyes trailing to the mysterious man behind the woman. Alice gasped sharply as the pupils of her eyes dilated from deep suspicion. Her brain leaped and froze multiple times in a fraction of a second until nothing but silence came from her, confusion and alarm pushed up to her face for the first time in months.

"Man, that's a stretch if I ever saw one," Dean stated. "Are you sure about this? Why would you say something like that?"

"Look, just trust me on this okay?" Sam pleaded but it obviously wasn't going to work, knowing the stubbornness of his brother and friend.

"Come on, man, that's weak. You gotta give us a little more than that."

"I can't really explain."

"Does this have something to do with that nightmare you had last night?" Alice's oddly calm voice is what made everyone stop and look at her, seeing something lurking up within her cerulean gaze that was as endless as an ocean. The deeper you go the darker things tend to get, but that darkness was now beginning to scratch that the surface of those cold eyes. "You've been acting funky ever since."

Dean looked puzzled. "What did you say?"

Sam began to feel his face grow hot as nervousness crept up this throat when he saw no way around this anymore. "I have these nightmares...and sometimes they come true."

Dean and Alice blinked once and just stared at him, not sure how to respond to that. "What?" they said.

"Look... I dreamt about Jessica's death...days before it happened."

"Sam, people have weird dreams, man. I'm sure it's just a coincidence." Dean insisted.

"Dean...I wanna think that but..." Sam marched over to the picture and pointed down at it, "I have never seen this man before and yet I have a dream about him? The exact same guy in this picture that just so happens to be in Alice's wallet?" As time grew, he was starting to become a bit more panicked by his own dream.

Alice's whole demeanor changed in a frightening amount of time, almost instant. Her face hardened up and a darkness captured her eyes that was greatly different from her usual firm gaze. There was no word right now to describe what she looked like. The term '_frightening_' didn't even come close. A heavy chill? A darkened undertone? Either way, it looked like a totally different person had taken control of her body because they had never seen that look upon her face before. Not once.

Alice said absolutely nothing to the boys and acted like they weren't even there, breaking off from the conversation and walking over to the table that still had all her papers and things scattered on it. She searched through the monstrous stacks of paper before finally pulling out a map that had lines and patterns all over it. It was different from her other map that the brothers known to be full of potential hunts. This one was worn and old, signs that told them it was used on a daily bases with the sheer amount of marker smudges and scribbles on it. Some of the writing wasn't even Alice's handwriting. It looked like Aiden's.

Sam was shaken and a bit fidgety as he continued. "Before Jessica died...I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything, and I didn't do anything about it 'cause I didn't believe it. And now I'm dreaming about Alice being in our old house back in Kansas? With that guy in the picture? He...he..." he gagged on his words and couldn't get it out in time before Alice ended the sentence for him, speaking deeply in a smooth and steady voice.

"He killed me, didn't he?" she said, totally unfazed by the news.

Those words were unique to Dean and his brain momentarily stuttered. "What?" He began to feel his chest clench with cold dread. Her tone wasn't right and those words placed together felt all wrong. So, very, very wrong. "All right, can everyone just slow down? I feel like I'm not in the conversation despite standing right here." He took a breath and felt his body shiver, breaking out into a cold sweat. "I mean, first, you tell me you've got the Shinning? Then you drop a bomb that Alice is gonna die, and you're saying I have to go back home? Especially when..." he choked and found himself unable to speak anymore.

Sam stared and pressed him for answers. "When what?"

He swallowed hard. "When I swore to myself that I would never go back there." Dean forced his eyes away from everyone and turned around. He flinched though when he felt a hand glide from his back up to his shoulder, the sound of Alice's soothing voice humming gently in his ears.

"Dean, you...don't have the slightest idea who this guy is. I started this case a long time ago. I can't leave this alone and I can't pass it on to another Hunter either."

He never knew how sweet Alice's voice could sound when she really tried. It drew him in but not nearly close enough to comfort and cure his fear. He turned around to see her face and noticed not a single tinge of fear upon it. "You might die."

"I don't care. I'm gonna stop him one way or another," she said.

He could really see that there was no hesitation or concern for her own safety, just solid determination filling her eyes with hints of fury mixed in. It made him think that whoever this guy was must've been someone who got away during a hunt she was on. It was odd though because that sounded very unlike her, the woman who made double sure a hunt was finished before bailing, leaving no loose ends or potential for things to happen again.

Dean tried to collect himself. "Then do you mind elaborating on who the hell this guy is?" he asked and saw the subtle shift in Alice's eyes.

"He's a ghost. Something Aiden and I been trying to track down for years now," she stated and gestured over to her map that made a lot more sense, now that they knew what it was for. "Unfortunately, this dude doesn't play by the usual rules other spirits follow and can haunt any person, but he does have some kind of pattern."

"What's that?" Sam asked and stared down curiously at all the complicated note-taking, but only because Aiden had such awful handwriting.

"People with a lot of emotional baggage but with strong wills, but what's frightening is that it's usually..." she paused and her eyes drifted far away from reality, showing the first signs of hesitation, "...women and children."

Any kind of doubt or hesitation vanished from Dean's face in an instant. His jaw set and he looked over at Sam, clearly thinking the same thing. If Alice of all people was acting like this over a case, then it was clearly a lot more dangerous then they first assumed.

* * *

Dean didn't know how long it been since the last time he set foot in Lebanon, though he would believe nothing had changed in the 22 years he's been gone. All the lawns looked the same and the houses looked like they were frozen in a single frame of time. Untouched. Though the color may have switched during the time gap. Everything still looked errie to him though, especially now that he was parked outside his old childhood home that was now fully restored from the fires.

Alice peeked her head through the car window and accidentally made Dean jump when she did. She stared somewhat concerned at him, her blue eyes dimming under the gray skies. "You going to be alright?" she asked, arching a brow and stepping to the side.

Dean pushed open the Impala door with a loud squeak and shut it behind him. "You sure you should be asking me that?" he said uneasily. "You're the one that Sam predicts is gonna die."

She scoffed. "If I had a dollar every time someone said that to me...then I wouldn't be living penny by penny each freaking day." Alice used her own special brand of kindness and patted him hard on the back. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Come on," she said and strolled up to the door with the boys on each of her sides.

They knocked on the door and waited for a second before it opened. A young blonde woman stood in the doorway with a curious yet worried glint in her eyes. "Yes," she says to the three.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but we're with the Federal-" Dean began before Sam suddenly cut him off.

"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean, and our friend, Alice. We used to live here. You know, we were just drivin' by, and we were wondering if we could come see the old place," he explained in a single breath which made Alice cock a brow, confused at what he was getting at. She looked at him and saw a shocked look reflecting in his eyes.

"Winchester," the woman said to herself before her eyes suddenly brighten like she remembered something. "Yeah, that's so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night."

Dean blinked a couple of times. "You did?"

She nodded her head and stepped away from the door. "Come on in."

The boys stepped in first and Alice followed close behind them, a cold chill literally taking her breath away like eyes were being burned into her back. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she swore with all her remaining sanity that someone was going to grab her. The overwhelming sense of peril took control of her body and forced her head around. Alice was honestly expecting to see someone standing right behind her but all she saw was open air. She frowned and looked around for a split second but still saw nothing, not even hearing creaking footsteps.

Dean stood in the doorway of the kitchen and saw Alice still standing in the middle of the room. Her face was pale with a look of urgency. "Alice?" His voice actually made her flinch. "You alright, sweetheart?"

By the look on her face and body language alone, it was clear that she was everything but '_alright_'. Still, she chose to lie, knowing that it wasn't going to stick. She mainly said it for her own sake of comfort. "Yeah," she said and hastily walked into the kitchen, Dean still casting her nervous stares.

He looked around the room and was half expecting to see something himself. He never did though.

The woman, Jenny was seemingly a single mother with two kids of her own. The oldest was her daughter that sat at the table doing homework, and her son that was inside a playpen, jumping around and demanding juice. His whole silly demeanor actually made Alice chuckle a bit and momentarily forget the spine-tingling danger she felt a second ago.

"Juice! Juice! Juice! Juice!" The toddler chanted with the biggest goofy smile on his face that reminded her of her own brother.

"That's Ritchie. He's kind of a juice junkie." Jenny stated. She grabbed a sippy cup from the refrigerator and handed it to him. "But, hey, at least he won't get scurvy." She smiled as the child downed the drink like it was made of liquid sugar. "Sari, this is Sam, Dean, and Alice. They used to live here."

Sari was quiet and her eyes were hesitant. "Hi," she said weakly.

Dean waved back.

Alice briefly looked around and finally noticed how empty the room looked, not even covered in memories or other people's possessions. "Did you just move in?"

"Yeah, from Wichita," Jenny said.

"You got family here?" Alice cocked a brow, seeing a shift in her eyes. It was small but noticeable enough.

"No. I just, uh….needed a fresh start, that's all. So, new town, new job –- I mean, as soon as I find one. New house." She smiled but the uneasy look on her face didn't disappear. She hesitated to talk but was still very vague about the details. Alice didn't need to hear the full story to know that she was recently widowed.

"So, how you likin' it so far?" Sam asked.

"Well, uh, all due respect to your childhood home –- I mean, I'm sure you had lots of happy memories here. But this place has its issues," she said and sparked their curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just getting old. Like the wiring, you know? We've got flickering lights almost hourly."

"Oh, that's too bad." Dean frowned and cast a glance at Alice. He was expecting her to look emotionally detached but that wasn't the case for her right now. There was something clearly disturbing her, uncertainty climbing up and begging to speak out. Alice was quiet though and Dean was getting more and more suspicious of what was wrong with her. "What else?"

"Um…sink's backed up, there's rats in the basement." Jenny paused and looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain."

Dean smiled and shook his head. "No. Don't worry."

"Have you seen the rats or have you just heard scratching?" Alice spoke up suddenly. She sounded like she was trying her best to keep calm but the boys picked up on the anxious strain in her voice.

"It's just the scratching, actually."

"And the pictures. Did you find the pictures in the basement too?"

Jenny was beginning to grow worried because Alice's eyes were starting to become tenser and tenser until they were narrowing into a glare. "Yes."

Sari suddenly stopped doing her homework. "Mom?" she said and leaned in close to whisper. "Ask them about those things."

"What, Sari?" Sam asked, a bit more insistent.

Fright began to bubble up in her voice and eyes, as well as Alice's. "The thing in my closet and the man who tries to get into my room."

Alice froze as the world closed in on itself. Her ears vibrated and her body tightened up, fingers curling up into a fist as this feeling of unknown and peril rushed all the way to her bones. Coldness seized her skin and every nerve in her body became numb. Her feet were glued to the floor as a sensation of wickedness cast over her whole entire being. Alice forgot the breathe when she opened her mouth, only to gasp for air.

There was more than one spirit in the house?

"Oh, no, baby, there's no one else inside, okay?" Jenny urged her frightened child and looked up to the gang. "Right?"

"Right. No, no, of course not," Sam stuttered out

"I wasn't dreaming," Sari begged and suddenly directed her quivering eyes towards Alice. "There's always an angry man wandering the halls and trying to get into my room, but then he leaves when something comes out of my closet. It was on fire." She stared and extra long time at her, more specifically her eyes and the way they were shaped. They felt and looked familiar when they were narrowed and glaring like that.

The shadows on the wall seemed to move by themselves as the air felt heavy and cold. Alice tightened her jaw as the hardened looked on her face quickly covered up the panic that was brewing just beneath the surface.

* * *

"You hear that? A figure on fire." Sam exclaimed while following Alice and Dean out of the house, his face flushed with a bright and panicked red. He was already worried about the spirit Alice was hunting down, but just the fact that something else was inside their old home threw him for a loop, mainly the point that it was on fire.

"Shh. Keep your voice down." Alice pushed the boys in front of her and stared back at the house. Nothing had changed and she still felt chills all over her body despite not being inside anymore. She didn't need to be overly sensitive to the paranormal to feel the malice and rage that hung heavily in the air like a toxic gas, but she was also given the sinking suspicion that it felt worse for her than it did for the boys. Even now, she can still feel evil eyes on her.

"That woman, Jenny, was she in your dreams?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. She was the same woman that Alice was trying to get outside before...you know." Sam looked back at Alice and saw her eyes swirling with many different types of emotions. He felt his stomach shift around and was generally frightened to look away, feeling that she'll be suddenly dragged back inside the house to never be seen or heard from again.

"Hell, I knew this was bad but somehow it went from 0 to 100 in a fraction of a second." Alice shrugged and crossed the streets over to her bike and Impala.

"Yeah, well, I'm just freaked out that Sam's weirdo visions are comin' true," Dean says.

"Yeah, same here."

"Well, forget about that for a minute." Sam suddenly shot back and made them stop. "The other thing in the house, do you think it's the thing that killed Mom and Jessica?"

Alice cocked a brow and actually had to put her hand up to stop Sam and his tirade of theories. "Sam, that's a bit of a stretch if you ask me." It's not like she wasn't concerned about this new spirit, but suddenly jumping to the conclusion that it was the same one was far too much for her. "If it was then why the hell would it still be there after all these years?"

"Well, I mean, maybe it left then came back?"

"Or maybe it's something else entirely, Sam, we don't know yet." Dean cut in before an argument could really brake out. "Hell, we got bigger problems with Alice's angry-ass spirit pacing the halls at night right outside a kid's door."

"Then we have to get 'em out of that house."

"And we will."

"No, I mean now." Sam insisted and got the strangest look from Alice.

"Christ all mighty, Sam. Calm down. There is no way she's gonna believe anything we tell her." Speaking from experience, telling the truth will always, always be the last thing she would do.

"Then what are we supposed to do? Alice, you're in danger just by being here!"

"Did you not freaking hear me? I said CALM DOWN!" Alice's voice was solid and ricocheted off the whole neighborhood, though it did silence Sam for good this time. She took a breath and ran her hand up to her bangs, clenching them hard and trying to calm herself.

It was just now starting to dawn on them but Alice seemed a bit more stressed than usual. Like something was itching in the back of her mind and was making her react differently to things, despite having to have done it over a million times. Needless to say, they've gotten used to Alice's calm way of handling jobs like these, but this case though, the spirit she was particularly hunting was putting her on edge when it shouldn't be.

* * *

Dean felt like he had to snap his fingers at least three times for him to finally grasp ahold of Alice's attention that was floating else where. "Hey. Hey! Alice." He stopped when she finally looked up. "You got that picture on you? The one with the spirit in the background."

Alice blinked a couple of times and was honestly a little frazzled about how much she was spacing out. "Ah, uh, yeah. Hold on." She reached for her bag and fumbled through it for a second, grasping a hold of the picture and handing it to Dean without really properly looking.

There was an obvious intensity that was lingering around the air but it was mainly having an effect on Alice. Ever since they crossed over to Kansas, Dean noticed that she hasn't been all there, like something else was pressing against her mind. Perhaps it was the fact that this was a case she and Aiden worked on, or that the spirit must've gotten away, which is why she's aggravated.

He shrugged to himself and leaned against the Impala, parked beside the gas station and its pumps. He looked down at the woman for a brief moment before directing his eyes to the spirit lingering over her right shoulder. He definitely was a tall sort of man who had a decent and muscular build. His ink-black hair blended in well with the shadows and his sharp eyes showed intense anger like it was a natural setting for him to be in. Something didn't sit right with his appearance though and honestly...he looked oddly familiar.

"So we're just gonna treat this like a normal job right?" Sam asked and grabbed their attention.

Alice frowned and slowly closed up her bag. "I guess. I don't know much about my spirit, but the closet one does concern me. We'll try and dig into the history of your old home for the time being." she figured and glanced over. "Dean. Anything you remember?"

"About that night, you mean?" he asked, looking up from the picture.

"Yeah," Sam said.

"Not much. I remember the fire…the heat." He paused as bitter memories flooded back into his head. "And then I carried you out the front door."

Sam's face shifted a little, slight shock coming to his features. "You did?"

"Yeah, what, you never knew that?" Even Dean was a little surprised by that, though it never occurred to him until that second.

"No," Sam answered in a nostalgic tone.

"Well...you know Dad's story as well as I do. Mom was….was on the ceiling. And whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her." Dean finished his brief explanation, which was only a small struggle to make sure his voice didn't crack.

"And he never had a theory about what did it?"

"If he did, he kept it to himself. God knows we asked him enough times."

"Okay." Sam took a breath and leaned his back against the car. "So, if we're gonna figure out what's goin' on now…we have to figure out what happened back then. And see if it's the same thing."

"Yeah, along with Alice's mystery...man?" Dean's words dragged on when he crinkled the picture and actually found an extra one in his hand. He figured Alice must've done it by accident when she wasn't paying attention.

The new picture was that of a couple smiling in the frame.

The woman was pale and had these sharply stunning blue eyes that shimmered like diamonds in an ocean, and pitch-black hair that was pixie cut and slick back. There weren't many similarities in the face but there was no mistaking those eyes. Dean figured out in an instant that this woman was Alice's mother. Charlotte Cromwell, if he recalled.

It was from Alice's father that she and her brother got most of their looks from. He had a ruggedly handsome exterior that was actually very soft looking in his smile, a crooked grin that was equal to Aiden's. Long brown hair that was just now starting to gray, and these sharp brown eyes that were very soft and gentle looking. It made Dean doubletake though, looking back at the mysterious spirit in the other photo. The striking similarities between the two were almost astonishing, down to the eye shape, face, and lips. Everything was nearly identical.

"Alice?" Dean called out as a thought began to circle through his head. He slowly began to connect the pieces together and the information that Alice neglected to tell them about. "You're not hiding something from us about this guy, right?" He was a bit hopeful that he was just overreacting and thinking too much into this but nothing was sitting right with him and he can't take shake the feeling that she wasn't telling truth.

Alice cocked a brow and picked her head up, a genuine look of surprise falling to her face, which gave him a bit of hope. "What? No."

His fate in her soon dwindled to absolutely nothing though when her eyes fell down to his hand and saw her family picture that was in his possession. It then occurred to her that she messed up and wasn't thinking straight.

Dean's face fell and he clenched his jaw. She always joked that she was a compulsive liar but...he never thought it was true until now. "These two are your parents. I can see that easily, but doesn't your dad look an awful lot like the spirit we're trying to stop?" he pointed out and turned the pictures around for them to see.

"What?" Sam said, eyes growing wide with confusion. He walked over to his brother and stared down at the pictures, looking between them and Alice, now starting to see the uncanny resemblance between the three of them. Sam began to feel his heart strain and ache. "Alice...who is this guy?"

Alice's face began to break and drain of color, filling with this new kind of dread that they have never seen her wear before. There was fear in her eyes but not the type of soul-draining fear they were thinking. She was scared of the fact that they knew and was slowly growing upset. Her lips trembled and she tore her eyes away from them.

At first, Dean was upset but that now became void. He was starting to get worried. "Alice," he spoke a bit more calmly but also trying to process through his head on why she would lie to them. He would like to let it go since it was bothering her this much, but seeing how much was at risk, he doesn't see himself doing that. "Just tell us who this guy is. That's all."

Alice opened her mouth like she was going to speak, though no words fell. She sighed deeply and looked frustrated. Above everything, this was one thing she wanted to avoid doing, have them figure it out. "He... It's not my dad if that's what you're saying." She was surprised by her voice cracking along with her hands trembling. Alice looked at the boys and couldn't see them clearly with her blurring eyes. "But he is...still blood."

Dean shifted his eyes firmly on her and saw the defeat crawl to her face. "Then who is it?

Alice rubbed her eyes with the back of her sleeve and could finally see the boys. She was surprised to see that they weren't angry, just concerned for her. "It's my grandad. A man by the name of...Jefferson Cromwell."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Welcome to the Quarantine Corner with Kae Aleah, your friendly writer who's hating this freaking outbreak more than anyone, especially since I work in a store stocker. Well, we all have nothing better do to at home so I hope you enjoy the extra special chapter. I wanna give you a bit more history in Alice's family so I thought it would be an interesting way of going about his episode. **

**Anyway. I'm tired as hell right now and I'm ready to go to bed. So wash your hands, STAY INSIDE YOUR HOUSE, and let me know what you think about this chapter. **

**Next week, I'll be covering Reanimation Gospel (Walking Dead)!**


	16. Home Part 2

**HOME PART 2**

Alice was shaking but there was only a slight tremble in her voice, not nearly enough to where her story wasn't incohesive to understand. She was firm and spoke through clenched teeth, hiding her anger behind them that was just on the boiling point. She lifted her finger and pointed down at the frozen frame of the kind-looking woman. "The woman in the picture is my grandmother, Jenna. She wasn't a Hunter and only married into the family, to Jefferson," she explained.

Dean began to feel his skin crawl when he looked down at Jefferson standing in the background, now realizing that he must've been alive when the picture was taken. "Judging by the bruises on her face...I guess they didn't have a happy marriage?" he grimaced.

Unfortunately, Alice shook her head and cast her eyes to the floor. "Believe it or not, he wasn't always like that. Still wasn't the best but never went as far as to hit his own wife. It's just...his attitude towards the world completely changed one day to the man we all knew and feared, especially to Jenna. She didn't leave him though. She was too forgiving and too afraid. He deeply hated my mom too because she wouldn't take any of his shit, which made him hate Aiden and I...even though we were only kids." She took in a breath and sighed with deep exhaustion that had been pent up for years now, it seemed. It's been a while since she's been this tired, simply just by talking too.

Alice leaned back against the glossy paint of the Impala and slumped down into her self. The warm hue on her face disappeared as a sick shade of green covered her skin. The boys were stunned for a good long time and went over everything in their head, analyzing Alice's words and the woman who spoke them. She looked heavily fatigued and that deeply worried them. For years, she had been working non-stop to try and find Jefferson as the stress slowly built up over time, worsening after losing Aiden. In the long run, she did this to herself, and at the moment...it all finally caught up.

"So what did it take to put down a guy like this? How'd he die?" Sam asked.

Alice crossed her arms over her chest and spoke once more with clenched teeth, still trying everything to keep herself together. "Jefferson was...angry. He was the most bitter and furious man who ever lived and can even put your own dad's temper to shame. One day...he was just worse than usual and, uh...struck his wife. Jenna quickly locked herself in the bathroom to hide from him so he wouldn't hurt her anymore. He tried to get in but she had deadbolts installed on that door for a reason. Jefferson eventually gave up and stormed out of the house to drink himself silly. He never came home though and the cops later found him, dead alongside the road. The stupid bastard died of alcohol poisoning after trying to make the long track back to the house."

Words were caught in everyone's throat as this chill suddenly ran under their skin and down the bone of their spines.

"He didn't really leave though, did he?" Dean said.

Alice closed her eyes and gently shook her head. "No. He didn't. The bastard was an angry man when alive, but in death...you can only imagine what he's like now." Her words were deadly cold just as much as her icy blue eyes were. "He didn't leave his wife alone. My mom had already passed from cancer so the only ones Jenna could look too were...Aiden and I. Yeah, we did everything we were supposed to do. We burned his bones and everything but nothing worked." Alice suddenly shuddered as these ugly and distressing memories flooded her head like a damn breaking. Her shaking started up once more and she just let it happen, her voice becoming jittery too. "He just wouldn't leave her alone and...nothing worked. Nothing...worked."

The air was thin and the atmosphere seemed to have shifted down a dark topic in a matter of seconds. Alice didn't say anything else about the matter but they knew what she meant by that.

Jenna died...

No wonder she was so hellbent on finding the spirit of Jefferson Cromwell. She and Aiden were out looking for revenge, to finish what they had started.

"Why did you wait so long to tell us something like this?" Dean pushed for more information but the answer he ended up getting was not at all what he was expecting.

"It's because I thought I could get away with it, Dean. That's why I didn't tell you." That was the quickest and straightest answer she gave all day. There was no hesitation, only rage seething in her voice, but it wasn't towards him though. "I don't like accepting the fact that we're related. That we share the same damn blood. I thought...I...I thought I could come up with another way to send his ass to hell but...I don't know. I really don't. I'm sorry, okay?" She was starting to grow frustrated now. "I know I'm an asshole for not telling you this. It's just..." She balled her hands up tightly into shaking white fists. They thought she was going to hit someone and knock them out but all she ended up doing was holding her face and hiding it.

Sam reached over and patted her on the shoulder, speaking as gently as he could. "Don't worry about it. We understand and we'll find a way to stop him, okay?" he looked up towards his brother.

"Damn right," Dean said confidently and walked over to her. He pulled her arms down from her face so he could see her. She wasn't crying but her eyes were glassy and heavy. It made his heart sway. "Hey. Things are going to be alright, you hear me? Trust us. Nothing's gonna happen to you or that family." He raised his hand up to her shoulder and gently touched the side of her face. She was warm but trembling. "We got your back from here on out."

Alice took in a deep breath and opened her eyes up wide, her lips breaking out into a wary smile. She lifted her hand and patted his cheek a couple of times before roughly pulling him towards her. Dean was somewhat startled by her advances but gave her what she wanted and hugged her tightly. Thinking about it though, it may have been the first time she had ever embraced him, desperately too. It felt good though. Her arms were strong while his were comforting. Neither of them wanted to let go.

She buried her face in his shoulder and spoke these low and muffled words through the fabric of his shirt. "Alright. Thanks, boys."

* * *

Alice went and rented out a motel room for her and the boy's afterwords. While they went out to ask around about John, she was ordered to stay behind and try to sleep the stress off, though nothing was working. She spent what felt like hours staring up at the same spot on the ceiling, pondering over all her life's decisions that got her to this point in time.

When did things go wrong, she wondered.

It's not like Jefferson was the only black sheep of the family, and to her knowledge, there was a whole generation of black sheep at some point in time. Her grandad was a little different though because it felt like he changed overnight. Her dad was never like that though. Jackson had always given off the impression of being a kind and gentle man with a few screws loose, but not in a bad way. She understood where he got it from because Jenna was the exact same way. She always had a smile on her face, it being like a blending combo of genuine and fake though. It was like he hadn't got a single personality trait from his dad, which was a gift in of itself.

Why was Jefferson even the way he was? What happened in the past to make him change so drastically in such a short amount of time?

"Did that bastard know something that the rest of us didn't?" Alice muttered under her breath and sat up in bed, groaning to herself because of how heavy her body felt. She wanted to sleep because of how tired she was, but her mind just wasn't settling down to even give her the chance to relax.

She felt so out of tune with herself that it took a good five seconds of her phone ringing to finally notice it. She scrambled for it and about knocked it off the bedside table before answering it.

"What? What?" she answered with a groan, obviously tired as hell and annoyed.

"Something tells me that you didn't sleep a wink." It was Dean, playful as ever.

"Body's tired, brain's wired. What is it?" Alice urged him and flopped back in bed. "Find anything?"

"Yes and no. Turns out, shortly after the fire, Dad went to talk to a psychic."

Alice cocked a brow. "That's a weird start. You got a name?"

There was a shuffling sound on the other end and mild arguing. Sam answered back instead. "Hey, Alice. No, but we're wondering if there were any local newspapers in the motel room. Maybe we can find a few."

Alice turned her head to the side and saw one sitting on the desk. She begrudgingly got up and dragged herself over to it and sat down. "Yeah, yeah. I got you." She flipped through a couple of pages and studied over the small clippings until the word 'psychic' caught her eyes. Only a few though in the town. "We got only a small amount so hopefully your dad went to one of them."

"What are the names?"

"Ah...There's a dude name El Dibino, Mysterious Mister Fortinsky, and, Uh, Missouri Moseley—"

It sounded like Dean snatched back the phone. "Wait, wait. Missouri Moseley?"

"Yeah? What?"

"That's a psychic?"

"Apparently."

There were a couple of seconds of incohesive sounds but she could make out the squeaking noise of the Impala's door being opened and closed. "In Dad's journal…there was a page about him going to Missouri...and learning the truth."

"He didn't mean the state?" Alice asked, confused.

"I always thought that too."

* * *

When they go there, Missouri was already in an appointment with someone, so they had to wait for about an hour until she was done. Sam and Alice were just mindlessly reading the magazines on the couch while Dean was just laying back and dozing off until Missouri was finished.

Dean remarked that Alice seemed to have calmed down considerably after telling them about Jefferson Cromwell, but he was still pretty concerned about her. At the moment, It was like she had gone back to her usual self and was pretty stone-faced to everything around her. Neither Sam nor Dean knew if it was just a 'mask' she was wearing, or if she was actually alright. Either way, ever since the truth came out, the boys haven't let her out of their sight.

After some time had passed, Missouri finally came out and followed behind a man. "All right, there. Don't you worry 'bout a thing. Your wife is crazy about you," she said sweetly and saw him out the door. Once he was gone, she sighed and cocked a brow. "Whew. Poor bastard. His woman is cold-bangin' the gardener."

"Why didn't you tell him?" Dean asked.

"People don't come here for the truth. They come for good news." She only got odd looks from them, seeing how that actually was a good point. "Well? Sam and Dean, come on already, I ain't got all day." She was smiling at them gleefully and waved them into the living room. "Well, lemme look at ya. Oh, you boys grew up handsome." She then pointed at Dean. "And you were one goofy-lookin' kid, too."

Alice snorted and immediately looked away when Dean snapped his head over and glared at her.

"Now who's your friend? Is she one of your girlfriends?" Her eyes were sparkling with delight when they fell on Alice but was only hit with a massive wave of negativity. Missouri could sense something coming from her just by merely looking. Something cold, something dark, and something...extremely consumed. Naturally, Alice was fairly good at hiding it but Missouri saw things differently than from most people. She probably would've figured out a lot more through physical touch but there was a reason Alice was keeping a distance from her.

Alice shook her head. "Nah, just a friend who's helping them out," Alice answered back right away just when she noticed Dean opening his mouth to speak. He closed it right away though after that. She didn't doubt for one second that he was going to say something else to try and get under her skin like usual. Dean was a creature of habit so she learned pretty fast to shut him down before he could even think about speaking.

Missouri smiled when she suddenly reached her hand out towards Sam, grasping it firmly. "Sam." She gasped slightly and had a look of pity in her eyes. "Oh, honey…I'm sorry about your girlfriend." This astounded the three Hunters. "And your father –- he's missin'?"

"How'd you know all that?" Sam asked, baffled more than anyone.

"Well, you were just thinkin' it just now."

Dean became a little more eager. "Well, where is he? Is he okay?"

Missouri looked grim. "I don't know."

"Don't know? Well, you're supposed to be a psychic, right?"

"Dean," Alice spoke up before he could get too ahead of himself. "She's a psychic. Not a magician."

"You better listen to your little friend, Dean Winchester." Missouri pointed her finger right into his face and watched as he flinched. "I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room, but I can't just pull facts out of thin air. Sit, please." Everyone went to sit down when she suddenly snapped at Dean. "Boy, you put your foot on my coffee table, I'm 'a whack you with a spoon!

Dean looked startled by her sudden outburst and froze where he was. "I didn't do anything."

"But you were thinkin' about it."

Alice's lips stretched out far into a grin and she snorted. "Okay. So, when did you meet John?"

"He came for a reading. A few days after the fire. I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say…I drew back the curtains for him," she claimed.

Dean hesitated a few and seemed to stutter on his words. "What about the fire? Do you know about what killed our mom?"

"A little. Your daddy took me to your house. He was hopin' I could sense the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing."

"Could you?" Alice asked.

"I..." She looked like she was going to say something but stopped herself, suddenly turning grim and becoming pale.

"What was it?" Sam urged her.

" I don't know. Oh, but it was evil." Missouri's words were strained with dread and despair. "So…you think somethin' is back in that house?"

"Not one...two, actually." Alice intertwined her fingers together. There was something about the way she said those words that immediately made Missouri shiver. "One of them...is probably the thing that killed there mom, but the other though...is from my own family. A man by the name of Jefferson Cromwell. You don't know him, but I'm telling you...he's bad news." her voice was coarse like a rusty knife.

Missouri felt breathless all of a sudden because Alice's emotions were suffocating her. "I don't understand. I haven't been back inside, but I've been keepin' an eye on the place, and it's been quiet. No sudden deaths, no freak accidents. Why is it actin' up now?"

Alice frowned strongly and felt her heart and entire being become heavy with distress. It was like a dark cloud gathering overhead, brewing with dark intention, and growing in size. "It would be nice if we knew all the answers for once."

* * *

They went back to the old Winchester house the next day with Missouri and knocked on the door, but the moment Jenny opened it, they all marked that she seemed pretty troubled. She was holding her son closely and was ghostly pale. "Sam, Dean. What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Hey, Jenny. This is our friend, Missouri," Sam introduced.

"If it's not too much trouble, we were hoping to show her the old house. You know, for old time's sake." Dean asked but Jenny was hesitant.

"You know, this isn't a good time. I'm kind of busy."

"Listen, Jenny, it's important." Missouri cut him off by smacking him on the back of the head. "Ow!" he shouted and snapped his head over at her, glaring.

"Give the poor girl a break, can't you see she's upset?" Missouri hushed him before turning to Jenny. "Forgive this boy, he means well, he's just not the sharpest tool in the shed, but hear me out."

Alice snickered before turning her head up to the windows. She wouldn't be lying if she said she didn't want to go back inside the house. The last time felt so tiring that it knocked all the energy from her body. Even now, just standing outside it felt like a chore. Her mind was telling her to get over it, but her body was saying something entirely different. She knew it was her own fear that was holding her back. Jefferson has always been the equivalent of a monster even when he was alive, and that fear ran deep. Standing there now, she knew he was there...and so did he.

"About what?" Jenny asked.

"About this house."

"What are you talking about?"

Missouri sighed softly and looked at Jenny with an understanding expression. "I think you know what I'm talking about. You think there's something in this house, something that wants to hurt your family. Am I mistaken?"

It then finally dawned on Jenny and her eyes grew with fright. "Who are you?"

"We're people who can help, who can stop this thing. But you're gonna have to trust us, just a little."

Eventually, after a little more convincing, Jenny saw no way around Missouri and finally left them back into the house, and in that very instant, Alice found it extremely hard to breathe. The air smelled stale and her body was sluggish, almost as if she was moving through thick tar. She wanted to breathe and fill her lungs with oxygen but it was like the house was rejecting her entirely. The cold emotions were radiating off the walls and pressing against her as they went upstairs to Sari's bedroom.

"If there's a dark energy around here, this room should be the center of it," Missouri said and looked around the young girl's room. Nothing out of the ordinary as of yet, but she noticed how pale Alice had gotten in such a short amount of time. "Honey, are you alright?"

The boys turned to her. Alice was standing near the doorway with her back to the wall, arms crossed over her chest. Her breathing was slightly irregular and she didn't look good. She looked sick and uncomfortable.

Alice nodded her head sharply. "Yeah. For now at least. Let's just get this over with. I don't like it inside this house," she declared firmly, voice trembling with tension and dread. "Why would it be inside this room?" she asked as Dean checked over her briefly. She smiled at him to ease his concern but he still didn't look convinced and stood by her side.

"This used to be Sam's nursery," Missouri answered softly. "This is where it all happened." She glanced back at Dean and noticed him pulling out an EMF meter. "That an EMF?"

"Yeah."

Missouri scoffed. "Amateur."

Dean shot her a glare but still continued to work the EMF, and by no surprise, the thing was beeping frantically. He leaned over and showed Alice and saw her face drop. His chest tightened up and he immediately pulled it away from view to not worry her anymore, but with the way she was acting, it came as no surprise to him that Alice was already aware of Jefferson's spirit lingering around.

"I don't know if you boys should be disappointed or relieved, but this ain't the thing that took your mom." Missouri suddenly said and caught their attention, shocked.

"Wait, are you sure?" Sam asked. "How do you know?"

"It isn't the same energy I felt the last time I was here. It's somethin' different." Her lips turned into a concerned frown. "But to be honest with you, Alice, your granddaddy sure has some nasty energy."

"That doesn't surprise me," she said and cocked a brow. "But why the hell did he end up in this place after all these years? Aiden and I had heard nothing about him until now. And what about the other spirit?"

Missouri pondered on that for a moment and glanced over to the closet. She opened it up and stepped inside. "They both may be here...just because of the evil that once came to this house, real evil. That kind of evil leaves wounds. And sometimes, wounds get infected."

Alice sighed and dropped her head, pushing herself off the wall and wondering around the small room, looking at the walls, the reflection in the mirror, and in the windows. It was like she was expecting to see something and wouldn't be surprised if she did. "Let me guess. This place is a magnet for paranormal energy, huh? No wonder Jefferson's here. The damn house gradually pulled him in overtime. No wonder Aiden and I never found him."

Missouri's voice increased. She sounded angry yet concerned at the same time. "Jefferson Cromwell had turned into a nasty poltergeist. He won't stop. He's never going to stop until Jenny and her babies are dead."

"Why's he even doing this? That bastard doesn't even know Jenny and he wants to kill her family?" Dean nearly shouted with all his pent up frustration coming forth. "What the hell did they ever do to him? "

Missouri stared at him, eyes glassy and lips trembling. She was breathless and spoke only two words that just killed the Winchester brothers. "Absolutely nothing."

Alice bit down on her lips. "So...wrong place at the wrong time."

Missouri nodded grimly.

She felt her heart shrink three sizes smaller as the room grew oddly cold to her, and without another word, she walked out into the hallway to escape the chill. She didn't want to be inside the house anymore. She couldn't breathe, the air was stale, the smell was revolting, and it felt like the walls were closing in on her. There was not enough oxygen in the air and her chest felt like it was going to burst from the strain and tension all the negative emotions were having on her, pressuring her.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to leave so badly that her body was just naturally walking in the directions of the stairs. She wasn't thinking anymore. She didn't care. She was leaving the damn house just so she could be given the chance to breathe again.

Her feet tapped lightly against the soft carpet as her ears picked up on the sound of heavy and rushed footsteps behind her. They were loud and it sounded like massive boots angrily slamming against the ground with every stride. Alice made it to the staircase when her heart about leaped out from her chest when the cold chill followed right at her back. She snapped her head over her shoulder and was stunned to meet these ebony eyes that were glossy and sinister. His features were hardened and he had these dark shadows under his sunken-in eyes. He was as every tall as Sam and Dean but gave off this suffocating air that was entirely made of rage. He was rage incarnated.

Alice couldn't speak and she couldn't breathe when she felt these large and cold hands shove against her shoulders. She gasped weakly as her body began to tilt backwards, the world rushing by in a blur when she descended down the stairs, the wicked entity fading away before her fleeting vision. Everything darkened though upon impact and nothing but silence followed soon after.


	17. Home Part 3

**HOME PART 3**

Both Sam and Dean jumped simultaneously when they heard a loud crash and tumble right outside Sari's room. Missouri turned around when she heard that and walked out of the closet. She looked around briefly and noticed that Alice wasn't in the room anymore. She didn't even remember seeing her leave in the first place. For only a moment, no one dared to say anything or move until Dean spoke up first, finally breaking the eerie silence.

"What the hell was that?"

"Oh my God!" Jenny's voice echoed through the house like nails on a chalkboard. It was so sharp that it made the hair on the back of their neck stand up.

The boys ran out of the room the next second and down the hall right where the stairs were. They saw Alice laying at the bottom of the steps with a large hole in the wall behind her. Jenny was sitting beside her too and was crying frantically, unsure if she was still alive or not

Dean became ghostly pale and his mouth dried up in an instant. "No no no no no." They both practically flew down the steps in two big strides and bent down beside Alice's unmoving body. Dean was careful when he moved her face but stopped when he saw blood flow from a small gash on the side of her head. "Son of a bitch!"

"What happened?" Sam asked Jenny.

The woman was hysterical and weeping. "I don't know! I just heard a loud crashing sound and saw her at the bottom of the stairs." Jenny looked over to Alice's body and felt her stomach turn when she saw the blood. "Oh my God..." she clasped her hand over her mouth.

Missouri was still upstairs and walking slowly through the hallway. Her eyes were weary and she was pale when this strange and disturbing chill flowed through her. It wasn't cold in the room but her body was shaking anyways. Her stomach shifted with unease and her hands were tightly clenching the fabric of her shirt. Something wasn't right with this house anymore. The air was filled with dread even though it wasn't a couple of minutes ago. Dark energy flowed through the house like poison through veins. She could see it now but didn't dare to move or breathe...a dark humanoid shadow moving around just at the corner of her eyes. A creature without a face but with footsteps similar to heavy boots stomping through the hollow halls. Missouri gasped and snapped her head towards the unknown entity of Jefferson Cromwell, yet the corridor was empty and the haunting sounds were gone. Though the feeling still remained.

"Boys!" Sam and Dean looked up and saw Missouri rushing down the steps as if she had just seen a ghost. "You need to get her out of this house right now," she urged them desperately while shaking. "Do you hear me? Get her out right now."

Dean didn't question what she meant and quickly picked Alice from off the ground. "Sam, get the door." They headed for the door and rushed out. Missouri stayed behind for a couple of minutes, not long but long enough to give Jenny some peace of mind.

* * *

Dean got a piece of gauze ready and placed it gently against the cut on the side of Alice's head, taping it down to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere. She was still out cold but after everything calmed down they realized that she just knocked herself silly. It didn't seem bad enough to take a trip to the hospital, so they ended up just going back to the motel room and putting Alice to bed for the time being.

He thought his heart was going to stop back then when he saw her slumped down on the floor, so anyone could imagine the relief he felt when he realized that she was mostly okay. "I can't believe the son of a bitch came out in the middle of the day," Dean said through clenched teeth since his blood was still boiling.

Missouri and Sam were sat down with a table full of various herbs that they were all collecting together to put into small pouches. "That Jefferson Cromwell had a nasty temper. I never felt something so suffocating before," she said grimly. "If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was a demon."

"We can't let Alice back inside that house. Jefferson's gonna tear her apart once it gets dark," Sam said.

"You don't have to worry about that," Missouri assured him. "The bump on her head tells me she's gonna be out for a couple of hours. We're gonna have to take the time and purify the house before that monster does anything else."

Dean cocked a brow and picked up some of the herbs to check out. "Is that what all this stuff is about? What is it, anyway?"

"Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt, a few other odds and ends."

"Yeah? What are we supposed to do with it?"

"We're gonna put them inside the walls in the north, south, east, west corners on each floor of the house.

Dean scoffed. "We'll be punchin' holes in the dry wall. Jenny's gonna love that."

Missouri looked up and smirked slily. "She'll live."

"And this'll destroy the spirits?" Sam asked.

"It should. It should purify the house completely. We'll each take a floor. But we work fast. Once the spirits realize what we're up to, things are gonna get bad," she warned them.

Before heading out, Missouri and the boys made sure everything was done and that Jenny wasn't going to be in the house when everything was going to go down. They may be one hunter short but it shouldn't matter. It had to be a quick in-and-out job.

"Sure it's a good idea leaving Alice here?" Sam asked and stood by the door, waiting for Dean to finish packing his bag and grabbing a hatchet.

"You said it yourself. Alice can't go back inside that house without Jefferson killing her." Dean shrugged his shoulders and tossed his duffle to his brother. "Come on. I really don't wanna keep Missouri waiting."

Sam rolled his eyes and walked outside to the car. Dean held back for a bit and watched Alice as she slept soundly and without worry. Thinking about it though, this was probably the best nap she had in months. If he can help it, Dean's hoping they can finally put this long case to rest.

"We'll be back before you even wake up." Dean walked over to the bed and kissed the side of her head. He nudged her cheek a little before heading out and locking the door behind him.

* * *

_September 12, 1995_

_Alice's throat locked up and the world began to spin with every last breath of air inside her leaving. She clawed at the cold arm attached to her neck but his skin was like stone. Jefferson's spirit didn't budge and his facial expression was flat and uninterested. He watched with darkened eyes as the color drain from Alice's face and her struggles ceased. He wasn't able to kill her though when Aiden pushed his hand right through his head and caused him to disappear instantly, releasing Alice._

_Aiden waved his hand that had an iron band wrapped around his finger. "Ha! Iron ring, bastard!" His laughter turned into painful wheezing with a large grin still stretching far across his face, bruised and bloodied from fighting Jefferson. _

_The lock on Alice's throat was released and she could finally breathe without Jefferson's cold fingers wrapped around her throat like a noose. She laid on the floor and about hacked her lungs up until she felt Jenna's hand on her back and heard her shivering and worried voice._

_"Oh, my child! Are you okay?" Out of all three of them, Jenna was in the worse condition. She could hardly walk anymore with the number of bruises on her body, along with the ones that had yet to heal when Jefferson was still alive._

_"Son of a bitch was trying to strangle me," Alice coughed while Jenna helped her up. "Why the hell is he still here? We salt and burned the bones. There should be nothing left!"_

_"How should I know!" Aiden shot back hysterically. "He's just stubborn, I guess." His bruised face hardened and his eyes quickly scanned the room, counting down the seconds they had until Jefferson came back. "We're getting out of here. Now!"_

_Jenna turned pale in an instant and she didn't move. "But he's attached to me. He'll come back no matter where we go."_

_"Then we'll figure something else out!" Aiden reached his arm out and grabbed Alice, shoving her in front of him and towards the door. "Gran, come on!"_

_Jenna looked absolutely frightened and clenched tightly to the front of her shirt, shaking her head. "Aiden! He's not gonna stop. It's only going to be putting you and Alice in danger!" She shuddered deeply when a cold chill swept through her body and left her feeling hollow. She knew that Jefferson would be back any moment now. Coming to hurt her family. Just like he used to hurt her. She didn't want that. No one deserved that._

_Aiden and Alice hobbled down the long hallway towards the exit when Jenna swiftly moved to their right and shoved against them hard. The siblings knocked into each other and fell right through the open bathroom. Jenna slammed the door shut on them and moved a heavy piece of furniture to block it. _

_"Gran?" Aiden grabbed the knob and pushed against the door. It wasn't moving though and he realized instantly that she had locked him and Alice in the bathroom. "Gran! Jenna, what are you doing! Let us out!" he screeched and pounded on the door like a mad man, panic taking over his body when he figured out what she was trying to do. "Jenna!"_

_"I'm the one he wants! I'm the one he's attached too! I don't want him to hurt anyone else." Jenna pleaded to them. They could even hear the heartbreak in her voice as she began to weep. "I'm sorry. Please forgive me!"_

_"Open up this damn door!" Alice's voice pierced louder than a tornado siren. "Jenna! Open the door!"_

_"Jenna!"_

_Jenna plugged her ears with her hands and backed up to the living room. She could still hear the muffled screams of her grandchildren...but Jefferson's heavy footsteps were so clear and distinct that it immediately made her heart go into overdrive. She could recall that same sound when he would come home drunk or angry. Sometimes even both. It always felt as though he was trying to drink his memories away._

_STOMP!_

_STOMP!_

_STOMP!_

_Jenna sucked in a deep breath when the world fell silent, a shadow at her back that carried winter and hellfire. She closed her eyes and didn't open them back up, mumbling continuously under her breath for Alice and Aiden to forgive her. _

_Aiden slammed his hand against the door one more time before stopping to look around. "Ally, toilet bowl cover! Gimme!" _

_Alice limped over to the cover and lifted it off the tank and passed it to her brother. Aiden slammed it against the door with all his might and broke a good size chunk from off the wood. He kept at it and stopped after a minute when he made a hole big enough for at least Alice to slipt through. He was far too big though._

_"Can you get through?" Aiden asked and gave Alice a boost up towards the hole. _

_"Yeah. Just give me a second to check up on Jenna and I'll open it." She placed one foot in the crack and wiggled her young body through. She fell through and crashed over the table Jenna had placed in front of it and tumbled onto the floor. _

_"You alright?" Aiden called back and stuck his head through the hole. "Hurry and go!"_

_Alice pushed herself up to her tired legs and staggered through the hallway and into the living room. It was strange because everything was oddly quiet now. The chill was gone too and the flickering lights had ceased. She felt her stomach drop and just stood there in the hall...staring at Jenna's body that laid in the middle of the room. Her skin had become gray and her eyes were wide open. Her hand was laying on her chest with her fingers pointed upwards towards her neck that had strangulation marks coiled around it. _

_Colors of black and gray filled Alice's vision and the world became calm with an odd static noise buzzing in her ears, but that may just be her heart that was thumping out of control. A sharp gasp rose from the back of her throat and her knees buckled from beneath her. Alice slid down the wall and sat there with her sharp blue eyes turning to glass and shattering. "Jenna...?"_

* * *

Alice woke from the hazy fog of her dark mind and panted as if she was low on oxygen. Not only that, but the room was dark too with only a dim orange light coming from the lamp to her left. She eased her breathing when realizing that she wasn't in the house anymore, much less stuck in the past.

Dean was sat down at the table and looked up when he heard Alice rustling around. "So she lives." He smiled with ease.

Alice squinted her eyes to try and see him better before feeling a throbbing pain coming from her head. "Damn. My head hurts," she muttered and pressed her hand to the piece of gauze, only now noticing that she was drenched in sweat. She slept for a good few hours but she looked more exhausted than ever before. Her words were slow and she could hardly keep her eyes open.

"Well...you did leave a pretty good-sized hole in the wall back at Jenny's place." Dean tried to make light of the situation but Alice didn't even laugh. She didn't even crack a grin, doing nothing but silent staring like her mind was somewhere else.

"How you feeling?" Sam asked. He was sat on the bed to her left and looked like he was getting ready to sleep too until Alice woke up.

"Bad headache and covered in sweat," she said dryly.

Dean cocked a brow. "Nightmare?"

She didn't answer that and kicked off the covers and headed to the bathroom. "Jefferson... He was the one who shoved me down the stairs. Saw his freaking face and everything..." she muttered behind the closed door and turned the sink on to splash some water on her face. She tore the gauze off, and sure enough, there was a nasty cut right at the hairline that was darkening with age. It may look ugly now but at least it was a sign that it was healing. "Scared the shit out of me." She ran her hand across the gash and flinched.

"Hmm. Well, you don't have to worry about him anymore," Dean called back.

Alice paused and quickly turned the water off and opened the door. "What do you mean?" She thought she misheard him but that wasn't the case with the way the boys were looking at her. Dean was relaxed but Sam appeared to be worried. For her, and another reason.

"Missouri purified the house while you were out," Sam explained to her.

"Yeah," Dean followed. "We really couldn't burn his body so we had to think of something else. Stuck a pouch of herbs in four corners of the house and everything just stopped."

"Missouri said it was over."

Alice felt beside herself and didn't know what to say or think. She wanted to be happy but that wasn't it. Nor was she angry either. It was like her mind had totally shut down but her body felt anxious, a pit of denial forming deep in her stomach. Nothing felt right and tension crept up her back like cold hands reaching out. She didn't know what to say at first until this one question popped in her mind that she decided to go with first. "What about Jenny?" she asked and continued to stand in the doorway like a stiff statue.

"The place was a bit of a mess after everything was said and done but...she seemed fine," Sam assured her.

After that, not a single word fell from Alice's mouth. Her hand was on the knob and her mind was still trying to desperately reboot itself so she could function like a normal person again. The uneasiness never passed and she really couldn't believe that it was over. In a blink of an eye...her long mission to take him down was over without her even realizing it.

Was Jefferson really gone?

* * *

Steam escaped through the bathroom door with the shower set to high, drowning out the boys' snoring as they sleep through the night without worry. That was the chance Alice was waiting for. She pretended to take the shower and only used it as white noise to try and lull the boys to sleep while she got dressed in the bathroom. It was a little trick she used on Aiden or herself whenever they would go through fits of insomnia. The high pitched ring of the shower and the tapping water was surprisingly soothing and it always seemed to work. Good to know that it worked on Sam and Dean too. After making sure the coast was clear, Alice stepped out of the bathroom and left the motel the first second she got.

She didn't trust herself to take the Impala and risk the wrath of Dean, so she decided to just walk since her bike was still parked at Jenny's place. It wasn't far so she wasn't really worried about the distance. It gave her time to think things through and finally wrap her head around the problem. Believing that Jefferson was gone could be a possibility but something still didn't feel right with her. In the past, they have thought about purifying him, just like the boys did, but that wasn't always a solution. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it wasn't and things only got worse. No method is a guarantee because some spirits are stubborn than most. She didn't doubt Missouri's claim that the house was empty, but this was Jefferson they were hunting. A man who was a former hunter. A Cromwell hunter, just like her. It just didn't seem that simple for him to just...disappear.

After a couple of minutes of just mindlessly walking in the dead of night, she stumbled across the neighborhood and saw her bike in the distance. It was untouched and glowing like a red beacon, and right across from that was Jenny's soundless home. She walked up to the door and hesitated at first before knocking. It took a couple of seconds but she heard footsteps on the other end, light ones with no heavy boots following close behind.

Jenny opened up and was taken back to see Alice on her doorstep."Alice?" She said before noticing the gash on the side of her head. "How are you feeling?"

Alice smiled awkwardly and ran her hand gently across her wound. It still hurts but it wasn't as bad as before. "Turns out, my heads as hard as a rock. I'm not worried, but can I come in for a minute though?"

Jenny looked uneasy about that request since it was the middle of the night and her kids were already asleep. "Alice...it's pretty late."

Alice's voice shifted a bit and turned grave. "Yeah, but...I need to check out your basement really quickly." Her sharp blue eyes looked like they were glowing with mixed emotions.

"Why?"

"Because you said you heard scratching, right? I just need to see what was going on down there. See if Missouri or the boys missed anything. It'll only take a second," she promised and tried to lose the awkward smile to make it more genuine.

Alice was never someone to take no for an answer, so reluctantly, Jenny opened the door all the way and moved to the side to invite her in. Nothing felt off about the house the last time she was in it and there wasn't a lingering feeling of dread and coldness either. Her throat wasn't locking up and she didn't feel as if she was suffocating anymore. That wasn't entirely the point though. She figured that Jefferson must've been in the basement for most of his time here, but she's puzzled about why there were scratching noises. It made her wonder what he was doing down there. Out of sight and all alone with his thoughts.

Jenny guided her quietly through the house and towards the basement that was poorly lit and musty smelling. The walls were made of stone bricks and were covered with boxes and other odds and ends that didn't have a place upstairs. It was slightly cold too but that was only because they were underground.

Alice stood in the middle of the room and looked around. "Can you do me a favor and check the walls on that side?" she pointed.

"What are you looking for?" Jenny asked, slowly getting nervous with what she meant by that.

She bit the inside of her cheek and muttered in a small voice. "You'll know when you see it..."

They broke off and started to look at the walls and floor of the small room, moving boxes aside and running their hands across the rough stone. Alice was quiet in her search and was actually starting to relax a bit when she couldn't find anything. Her peace ignited like paper and burned up when she heard Jenny's shaking voice.

"Oh my God..."

Alice turned around in a flash and saw Jenny backing away from the wall with her hands over her mouth. "What is it?" she asked.

After removing some of the boxes that were covering a section of the wall, it showed these strange claw-like marks that were etched into the stone, and beside it were names of _her_ family. '_Alice, Aiden, Jackson, and Jefferson'_. They all were scratched into the wall with someone's nails and written multiple times. Their names seemed to circle around this single one though that was written bigger than the rest.

The name was '_Jezebel_'.

Jenny looked close to fainting. She pointed her finger at the wall and spoke up with a frightened voice. "These...these names weren't here before. I...I don't know who did this."

Alice stared at the wall and turned perplexed, a chill shooting through her skin that pierced her heart with dread once more. "I got a pretty good idea of who..." she muttered and brought out her phone and took a picture. Afterwards, she walked up towards the wall and ran her hands across the name etched into the stone, mimicking claw marks with her fingers. "Jezebel...?"

_STOMP!_

_STOMP!_

_STOMP!_

Alice stopped and sucked in a deep breath when she saw dust falling in front of her that came from the ceiling. She ran up to Jenny and quickly slapped her hand over her mouth to stop her from making any noise. They listened as footsteps moved above them. Heavy and angry. They sounded like they were made with heavy boots like the ones Jefferson wore. The same sound that had haunted her since she was 14 years old. The last sound Jenna heard before she died. "Jefferson never left... He's still here."

* * *

"Sam! Wake up!" Sam was abruptly pulled from his dream world when he felt a rough hand began to shake him. "Sam!"

He turned around in bed and saw Dean hovering over him with a panicked look on his face. "Dude, what are you doing?" he yelled at him.

"Alice is gone!" Dean said while pulling his jacket over his shoulder, having to have gotten dressed at the speed of lightning when he woke up and saw that she was gone. "Get up. Now."

"What?" Sam shot up from the bed and looked at the empty bathroom that was dark inside.

"Yeah. And I bet you she went to Jenny's place. Get up! I got a bad feeling about this."

* * *

Sari's high pitched scream echoed through the halls as Alice and Jenny rushed upstairs to grab the kids and get out of the house. No one knew were Jefferson was since the footsteps had stopped and there was also the matter about the second spirit that was probably still in Sari's room. Which is why they were rushing to get up there as fast as they could.

"I'll get Sari! You get Ritchie!" Alice screamed like a banshee and hung a left while Jenny took a right towards Ritchie's room.

She ran into the room and saw Sari sitting up in her bed, tears welling up in her eyes and falling down her cheeks. She was screaming at a humanoid spirit walking out of the closet with flames coiled around their body, completely masking their face. It didn't move though and nor did it make any indication that it was going to attack them at all.

"Sari, close your eyes!" Alice rushed up to her and blocked the view of the spirit. Sari closed her eyes and was scooped up out of her bed. They rushed out of the room and left the flaming spirit behind.

Alice moved down the darkened halls just as Jenny emerged from Ritchie's bedroom with her son in hand. They proceeded to the stairs just as Sari opened her eyes. She was facing down the hallway they had just come from and saw something lingering in the darkness. A tall figure who looked like he was entirely made of shadows.

Sari screamed so loud that it made Alice stop. "He's coming!" she cried and held tight to the young woman shirt.

Alice looked over her shoulder and could finally see him. The creature that was once her grandfather. His frame was tall and muscular but it looked like he was dripping with shadows. His hair had strips of gray in it and his skin was pale enough to see blue veins underneath. His eyes were black too and so terribly sunken in that it didn't even look like they were there. Just two black pools that were inflamed. He no longer looked like his old self. Not when alive or when she first encountered his spirit all those years ago. Right now, he was too dark, cold, and angry. He was a shadow of wrath.

This man was a demon...

"Crap." Alice covered Sari's eyes with her hand and turned back around. Jenny had stopped by the stairs and was staring wide-eyed at Jefferson, seeing him fully for the first time. "Jenny, get out of the house right now!" she screeched, snapping her out of her fear.

They ran down the steps towards the front door. It was left open but some unknown force slowly began to close it. Alice immediately put Sari down and ran for the door. She tried to keep it open but it was too strong. Instead, she placed her body between it and the frame and kept it open by pressing her foot against the door. The force pushed against her body but Alice wasn't giving up and used almost all her strength to barely kept it open. Making it just big enough for Jenny and her kids to make it out.

"Get out, get out, get out!" Alice ground her teeth together and scraped her nails against the frame. She knew that if this door closed then it won't open again. Jefferson wouldn't allow them to escape. It would all be over. "GET OUT!"

The boys drove up the street and came to a blazing halt in front of the house with smoke emitting from their tires. They jumped out just in time to see Jenny rushing her kids through the opening below Alice's legs. First, it was Ritchie, then Sari, and finally Jenny. They were out. They were safe.

"Alice? Get out of there!" Dean yelled for her.

Alice snapped her head up and saw the boys running towards the door. Her vision was obscured though when one hand covered her eyes while another wrapped around her neck. She gasped only once before Jefferson yanked her body back into the house, the door closing behind her just when the boys made it to the steps.

Dean grabbed the handle and tried to open it but it wouldn't even twist. He couldn't get in. "Son of a-" He pounded his fist against the door before stopping and taking a step back to think of a better plan and fast. "Sam! Axe and gun in the trunk. Hurry!" he tossed his keys to his brother.

Dean rushed around to the kitchen window to see if he could get an eye on what was going on inside. He jumped out of shock though when Alice's body was suddenly flung against it, cracking the glass and leaving smears of blood when she slid down. Jefferson marched up towards her with his heavy boots stomping against the ground like loud heart palpitations. He leaned down and picked her up by her neck and slammed her entire head into the window, cracking it further and splattering blood all over it. Alice's screams were starting to become muffled and weak with every thud.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean's eyes became ablaze with rage and blinded with red. He screamed loudly at the man but Jefferson didn't even look like he heard him. "Alice!"

Sam came rushing back and quickly passed the axe to Dean and used it too began hacking at the door. His swings turned ferocious with the sound of chaos pressing against his ears and urging him to hurry. He could hear Alice's cries of pain. The heavy thuds. The sound of cracking glass. He could hear it all and wanted it to stop!

Sam hesitated for a split second before grabbing Dean's arm, stopping his wild swing when he made a hole just big enough to squeeze through. "It's good enough. Come on!"

Dean slipped through the door first and ran into the kitchen with Sam right behind him. Jefferson stood near the window with his hand stretched out, his fingers locked around Alice's neck. Her face was covered in deep cuts and there wasn't a surface of skin that wasn't already covered in blood. Her eyes were wild though and her fingers were clawing into his arm, her legs kicking around to try and free herself from his murderous clutches.

"Hey!" Dean raised his gun and pulled the trigger, ripping salt pellets right through Jefferson's spirit body and making him release Alice. He took a second to make sure he was really gone before rushing over. "Alice. You alright?"

Alice moved very carefully into a sitting position and pressed her back to the wall. Her body was quivering with pain and her neck was wrapped with bruises. She picked at the cuts on her face and removed some of the glass shards that had embedded themselves. She flinched when she grabbed ahold of one and caused the blood flow to become heavier.

"Alice? Hey. Can you hear me?" Dean pressed his hand to her shoulder, moving carefully up to her neck and making her lookup.

She had a very lazy and weak grin on her lips when she looked and saw his face flushed with panic. "Yeah... I can hear you," she said and looked past him towards Sam who stopped at the doorway, staring at something and looking alarmed. "Sam...?"

They then began to hear the sound of crackling fire while Sam backed up towards them and kneeled down. The fire creature from Sari's closet walked out in front of them and approached slowly, its body still ablaze. Dean raised his gun but Sam quickly stopped him from shooting it.

"No, don't! Don't!" he urged him.

"What, why?!"

"Because I know who it is. I can see her now." He didn't sound worried at all, but surprised and hopeful.

Suddenly, the fire disguising the creature's appearance faded away and unveiled a rather beautiful woman underneath. She was young-looking with long, wavy blonde hair, and wearing a stark white nightgown. She looked at the boys with this incredibly gentle face as they stared fondly back.

Dean's expression softened and he looked in awe. "Mom?"

"Dean," Mary smiled and walked up to them, her footsteps completely soundless. Her eyes then fell to her youngest. "Sam...I'm sorry," she said with tears beginning to well up in Sam's eyes.

"For what?" he croaked up but never got an answer. She only stared sadly at him before her eyes briefly went to Alice. She looked just as dumbfounded as the rest of the boys did.

"Mary Winchester..." Alice muttered softly before her eyes widen, trailing to what was behind the ghostly woman with the room becoming blistering cold.

Mary turned around slowly and saw Jefferson standing at the end of the room. It was almost like he was hiding away in the shadowy corner, but completely expressionless as he always been.

"You get out of my house," she said and began to step towards him,

Jefferson's appearance started to twitch and move around rapidly as this unearthly growl bubbled up from the back of his throat. His mouth unhinged and stretched wide as this demonic screech bellowed out deep from his stomach, high pitched and bone-chilling that no human could've made. For once, Alice was struck with this instant fear and became paralyzed in place as the nightmare man charged at Mary and grabbed her. Immediately, their bodies ignited and soon began to disappear within the flames, Jefferson's screams fading away and becoming nothing but an echo in the room. Nothing but the silence was heard and the boys were just left sitting there, holding Alice closely as the woman remained astonished.

* * *

Daybreak finally arrived in the shape of a golden sun with not a singe heavy footstep to be heard. Alice sat silently on the top step of Jenny's house and used a rag to wipe the blood off her beaten face. Her body was covered in bruises and her bones were aching. Not only that, but her neck felt tight and her left eye had broken a blood vessel when Jefferson attempted to strangle her. Again. She won't say she got off easy but its better than being dead.

Dean stood by his car with Jenny and shuffled through the old family photos she gave him. He stopped briefly though and looked up towards the steps where Alice was. Ever since last night, the girl had been quiet and hasn't said a word to anyone after Jefferson went up in flames with Mary Winchester. Can't say he blamed her since the whole thing was baffling to him too. Still, that troubling look in her eyes hasn't disappeared yet

"Thanks for this," Dean said and tossed the photos in her car.

"Don't thank me, they're yours," she smiled.

Missouri stepped out of the house with Sam after making double sure there wasn't anything left in it. They didn't want Jefferson to fool them again into thinking that he was gone. "Well, there are no spirits in there anymore, this time for sure."

"Not even my mom?" Sam asked.

Missouri frowned and sadly shook her head, much to Sam's disappointment. "No."

"What happened?" He had to ask since he still wasn't sure. Alice was listening too but didn't turn around to acknowledge it.

"Your mom and Jefferson's spirit, they canceled each other out. Your mom destroyed herself goin' after the demon that Jefferson Cromwell had become." Missouri explained, none to Alice's surprise, at least with Jefferson being filled with so much hate and disdain that he ended up becoming the thing he had spent his whole life trying to defeat. The irony was not lost on her but she didn't laugh about it.

Sam looked puzzled. "Why would she do something like that?"

"Because...even she could tell that Jefferson shouldn't be allowed to exist in this world anymore." Missouri reached a hand up to his shoulder and saw his eyes starting to turn glassy. "Sam, I'm sorry," she apologized abruptly.

"For what?"

"You sensed him here, didn't you? Even when I couldn't."

Sam soon looked puzzled when the facts were laid out for him. He dreamt of Alice dying and he knew that Jefferson wasn't truly gone. But why did he know these things? "What's happening to me?" he pleaded.

"I know I should have all the answers, but I don't know." It was unfortunate and she could understand the fear that Sam must be feeling, knowing something is happening to his body but couldn't explain what it was.

"Sam. You and Alice ready?" Dean reminded them since it was about time to pull out and hit the road.

Sam gave him a wave and began to head towards the car as Alice got up to follow. She was stopped though when Missouri spoke to her.

"Honey, are you going to be alright?" She searched for answers behind Alice's eyes made of cold stone. They were impenetrable, giving off just as much emotion as her voice was. Totally flat.

"Jefferson's dead..this time for good. That's all I can hope for." Alice sighed and reached down to pick up her helmet.

Missouri was baffled for a moment until she moved her hand up and touched Alice's shoulder. A heaviness of emotions lashed out in a split second that was pitch black. Breathing was difficult and the air was thin and dull. There were still fractures of light but those were fading too and the water was gradually rising, murky black water that felt like sticky tar. Missouri was only touching Alice for a second before she couldn't take the suffocating emotions anymore. She pulled her hand away as if she had just burned herself and was now deadly pale and drained.

"Missouri?" Alice blinked a couple of times before realizing what she had done. "You okay?" she asked but stepped out of reach so she wouldn't get touched again.

Missouri breathed in deeply and shuddered a bit but quickly tried to pull herself together. "Don't you three be strangers." She attempted to smile to not make it so obvious but it didn't work. She saw the way Alice's eyes sharpened and bore through her like she was see-through.

"We won't..." Alice drew her words out suspiciously before turning around. She walked off towards her bike as the boys hopped in their car and started up the engine.

* * *

Alice sat slouched over in her chair as the dim room wrapped around her. She had dark circles forming under her eyes that were slightly bloodshot from the long hours she'd been awake. Her body was cold and sluggish but trapped in an unending routine of turning the pages of her journal and reading the small text inside. One page at a time, her eyes became desperate and heavier.

Her memories were on repeat from the time she saw Jenny's basement wall that had the odd scratches. Her family names and that one unknown name. Who was Jezebel? Why did Jefferson so obsessively write their names down but made that unknown person the center of attention? Not only that, but the way he wrote her name was weird. It looked like he ran over the same letters a hundred times and dragged them out to made it look wretched and twisted. Alice didn't know how to explain it...but it was like he wrote that name with great disdain.

Oddly enough, Alice had heard the name before but it was only out of luck. There was an entry in the Cromwell journal that mentioned that name. And after flipping through what felt like two hundred pages, she found the entry that only had twelve words written in it:

"_I found Jezebel and figured out the truth. It's all her fault!" -J.C._

Back then, neither her nor Aiden knew what that meant and just shook it off. Because of the initials, they both thought that it was Jackson Cromwell who wrote it, their dad. But now...reading it had a different meaning. A meaning that Alice wasn't sure what to make of. She just didn't like it. Jefferson must've written it.

"Who the hell is Jezebel?" Alice mumbled a bit too loudly and looked up to the sound of shuffling sheets. Dean was still asleep and Sam wasn't even inside the motel room. He took the Impala an hour ago to start preparing for tomorrow's trip. Gathering food and supplies that would last them until the next town. He seemed to be just as restless as her.

Alice closed her hands over her eyes and groaned softly. She leaned her head back until she was looking at the wall behind her upside down. She stared blankly at the black corner and was half expecting Jefferson's demon to come rushing out from the shadows. He never did though. She and Aiden had been hunting him for so long that it was hard to believe that he was actually gone. This time for good. Her brother sure would have loved to see that man's final moment and give him one last chaotic laugh and a flip of the bird. She could imagine him doing that and it made her smile.

She popped her head back into place and cocked it side to side until she felt her muscles relax. Her eyes caught a glimpse of her photos on the table and stopped to just stare at them.

Aiden and her dad both had the same goofy grin that no one ever took seriously, while she and her mother shared these sharp and judgmental blue eyes that always seemed to scare the pants off of people. Those thoughts were only memories though. Memories that were frozen into a single burnt image. Single frames of happier times...when her family was still alive.

* * *

_September 13, 1995_

_"Hey. Let me do it." Alice opened her hand and flexed her fingers for her brother to hand the lighter over. _

_Aiden stopped so hard that his body jostled forwards when he was about to toss the lit lighter onto the pile of wood. He cranked his head over his shoulder and saw Alice's outstretched hand, still flexing her fingers at him. "Why...?" he dragged his word out unnaturally long to get his point out. __Never had Alice been the one to put the fire to their family members. It had always been him to do it. He did it with their dad, mom, and he was going to do it to Jenna until Alice spoke up...for once. _

_She didn't say anything and continued to hold her hand out. Totally expressionless. _

_Aiden rolled his eyes and tossed the lighter in the air for her to catch. "Look. If you wanna do it, that's fine. But why now?"_

_"It's because I'm done with this bullshit." Her face twisted up into a crude scowl while she tossed the lighter back and forth between her hands. "How many times are we gonna have to do this? I'm done, Aiden. I'm not doing this...stupid routine anymore."_

_Aiden cocked a brow and placed a hand on his hip. "Sounds like you think I'm stupid enough to get myself killed." He scoffed when he saw the look his sister was giving him. "You know what? Don't answer that. You're gonna end up hurting my feelings." He tried to make it sound as if he was offended but did a terrible job at it. He only did it though to get a reaction from her. _

_"Grow up."_

_"Hey, not everyone can be a cold badass like you," he said dramatically and rolled his eyes all the way back to his head. Alice promptly smacked him pretty hard in the arm but it only made him snicker. Which probably pissed her off more. _

_"Says the guy who was born with a few screws loose. You're too freakin' weird to do this job," she shot back fiercely. _

_"Then why am I still alive?" Aiden's grin never waned. He leaned in close and jabbed her in the side and made her jump. _

_Alice opened her mouth and glared but immediately slammed her lips close. Aiden wasn't smiling anymore. His face was hardened up like thick, cold ice. He didn't have his usual goofy grin on his face and his eyes were absolutely heavy. He was serious this time. A rare moment that always stunned her quiet like the dead. It honestly scared her a bit when he became this way. _

_"Ally..." his voice was unexpectedly deep and raspy. "Why don't you just tell me what you're really thinking?"_

_Alice opened her mouth and took in the blistering cold September air. It was freezing outside and the chill was only making her cuts and bruises worse. "You really don't get it? We're all we have left, Aiden. I'm not burning you, too." She then clenched her jaw and flicked on the lighter, tossing it onto the wood._

_They both took a far step back when red hands reached out from the wood and coiled around the pile, wrapping Jenna's cloth body in flames. Her small framed stature soon disappeared in a pillar of dense smoke. They were no longer able to see her. Her smile faded upon her death and the memories burned up with the rest of her._

_Aiden pulled his eyes to the ground and stuffed his hands into his pockets to try and beat the blistering bitterness that the fire couldn't even save them from. Because this wasn't the type of fire that was supposed to be warm. It was a cold one. A mournful one. _

_The fire popped and crackled but Aiden knew she only did that to hide the sound of her sniffling. He could even see what looked to be tears welling up in her eyes that she quickly hid by rubbing them away. Alice had never been someone to cry and he knew that she hated doing it. It frustrated her more than anything when she couldn't control it. But without, he probably would have never known her true feelings, and he's glad for it. _

_Aiden elbowed her in the side a couple of times until she finally got annoyed enough to elbow him back. He then reached over and grabbed her by the shoulder and gave her a side hug. "The hell are you talking about? No chance I'm gonna throw my sister to the wolves." He ran his hand up to her head and bobbed it back and forth. "I'm gonna live forever."_

* * *

As their bodies burned away, all Alice had now were these frozen memories burned into paper. A stupid picture that meant absolutely nothing to her if they weren't with her in the flesh.

Silence haunted the darkroom when a fog rolled in, a thick white haze inside Alice's head that kept her stiffened in place. Slowly, her breathing hollowed and her stomach rolled in all sorts of directions until it twisted up into a painful knot. Her skin felt hot while tears filled her eyes and streaked down her face. Alice felt like she couldn't breathe even though she was taking in multiple gasps of air that made her lightheaded. The room began to shake and she abruptly sat up in her chair, staring intensely at the pictures in front of her as the image began to morph and twist until they weren't her family anymore. They were demons that resembled Jefferson. Alice let out a shriek of horror and felt her legs get trapped under the table and knock it over, sending her crashing against the ground and finally waking up Dean.

"What the...!" Dean thrashed under his sheets and quickly got them off and sat up at the speed of light. He reached for the lamplight and turned it on but spotted Alice on the floor. Her face was stained with tears and she was dangerously pale and hyperventilating. He didn't know what to do and sat there, stunned at what he was staring at until he came crashing back down to reality. "Alice?" He jumped out of bed and hurried towards her. He touched the side of her hot face and tried to focus her eyes on him. "Hey! Can you hear me? What's wrong? Alice."

Alice reached up to his shoulder and clutched his shirt. She was shaking like crazy and the tears just wouldn't stop. She clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back her muffled cries that sounded like struggled screams. She wanted to scream though. She gulped once and inhaled with a deep shudder before hiding her face in his shoulder.

Dean would've thought it was the end of the world when he heard her sobs that mimicked outcries of heartbreak. It was a sound so foreign to him that he never thought he would've heard from Alice. Her voice was so shrill that it pierced his ears and made them ring. He responded to that by wrapping his arms around her and putting his back to the wall. He ran his hand up and down her back and whispered close to her ear. "It's okay. You're going to be okay. You hear me? You're going to be alright."

He held her there, locked in a death grip, and had no intention of letting go until she stopped. He wasn't sure how long that was going to last though. His eyes drifted to the stuff on the ground and noticed that her phone was still turned on and had a picture on the screen. He saw the name 'Jezebel' on it.

Light flooded in from the window and they could hear the familiar rumble of the Impala pulling into the parking lot. A second later, Sam strolled through the door and stopped at what he walked in on. "What the hell happened?" He looked just as stunned as Dean was.

"I don't know. I woke up and just found her like this," Dean explained through Alice's muffled cries into his shirt.

* * *

Alice eventually managed to pull herself together but she wasn't the same afterwords. Her eyes were burned out and exhausted of all life. This time, she was more than willing to go to sleep and face the nightmares. The boys were happy that she was finally in bed since she really needed it, but they knew they needed to talk though, so Sam grabbed Alice's journal and headed outside with his brother.

"This is weird." Sam shook his head and flipped through the pages of the journal to find the one Alice was on. "I never thought I would see her like this."

"You're telling me." Dean leaned over towards the window and peeked in to make sure she was really asleep. By no one's surprise, she was out like a light.

After a few more pages, Sam found Jefferson's entry about Jezebel. "I don't even know where to begin on these notes. As far as I know, Jefferson never wrote anything about this Jezebel person before. It's just this one entry that dates back pretty far." He flipped ahead a couple of times and noticed something odd. "Also...this was the last time he ever wrote anything in the Cromwell journal." He could tell since everyone in that family made it a habit of writing their initials.

"Yeah. I got a hunch about that one," Dean said.

Sam's eyes grew. "What? You do?"

"Do you remember when Alice said that Jefferson wasn't always the way he was?"

"Yeah. She said he kinda changed overnight." It finally clicked for him and he slapped the book close. "And you think this was the cause? This Jezebel person?"

Dean shrugged but seemed pretty confident about his theory. "I'm thinking something spooked him pretty bad. And knowing their history...it must've been something big."

Sam felt his stomach grow sick. "I hate to think of what it was." He leaned against the door and placed the book under his chin.

"Not much we can look at right now," Dean joined him against the door. "And there's about what? A hundred Jezebel's in the world?" He lifted his hands and slapped them down at his side.

"Very few biblical ones though."

"Yeah. But for now...you think we can put this on the back-burner?"

Sam blinked and turned to him. "Why?"

"Come on, man. Did you not see her?" he explained and stepped away from the door. Sam noticed that he seemed to grow a bit anxious. "Alice just had a mental break-down less than an hour ago. I'm kinda worried right now."

"Yeah. I see what you mean, but what do you wanna do?"

"The only thing we can do. We look out for her. Make sure she's not gonna do anything stupid."

Sam frowned and looked away as something itched in the back of his mind. "Dean, I agree with you, but I think there may be more to this," he said and was quite gentle when he spoke, which was off-putting for Dean.

"Like...?"

"I don't know. PTSD, clinical depression, an anxiety disorder. You name it." Sam couldn't help but think a bit further into this. It felt like they were only scratching the surface of what that break-down was about. They been working with Alice for months now and never did she give them any hints that would lead up to this, not until this case came up and her whole attitude changed. She looked vulnerable, for once.

Dean fell silent and turned skeptical. "What? No. That's sounds nothing like our girl." He shook his head.

"Than how do you explain the break-down, huh? She constantly has nightmares about Aiden and I'm sure she has one's of Jenna. Alice has been hard-balling it for years...and I think everything's just now starting to catch up to her."

Dean was stunned for a second with his mouth hung open. "Come on. You can't be serious." His voice was weaker than before. It's not like he didn't believe what Sam said, because something definitely wasn't sitting right with him.

"I'm not saying she has those problems, okay? I just don't think we're seeing the whole picture." Sam was steadfast in his belief that something else was storming inside Alice's head to get a reaction like that.

Dean's chest felt heavy and he struggled to breathe deeply. "Fine, but that still doesn't change the plan," he said and tightened his jaw. "We're gonna have to keep a sharp eye on her for a while."


End file.
